


Refuting Death

by MixnSpice



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2, 亜人 - 三浦追儺 & 桜井画門 | Ajin - Miura Tsuina & Sakurai Gamon (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Ajin Anime & Manga Spoilers, Ajin Nanami Chiaki, Ajin | Demi-Humans (Ajin), Alternate Universe - Ajin Fusion, Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Dehumanization, Gen, Government Experimentation, Hinata Hajime and Kamukura Izuru are Separate People, IBMs (Ajin), Immortality, Slow Burn, Temporary Character Death, Torture, Unethical Experimentation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:40:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 76,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23257072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MixnSpice/pseuds/MixnSpice
Summary: Ajin(Demi-Human):organisms that appear to be human, but are unable to die permanently, can't be considered as such.Because of their potential, those discovered to be one are to be taken into government custody for the safety of those around them and for the benefit of humanity.Hajime refuses to let history repeat itself, no matter what. Izuru appears to know more than he lets on. Chiaki discovers an awful truth and is no longer sure about what it means to be human, who is right, and who is wrong.Most importantly, Satou's new game has only just begun.
Relationships: Hinata Hajime & Nanami Chiaki, Kamukura Izuru/Nanami Chiaki, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Satou (Ajin) & Tanaka Kouji, Shimomura Izumi & Tosaki Yuu
Comments: 14
Kudos: 70





	1. Arriving Anew

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so, before we start this off, let me give you all a fair warning. As mentioned in the tags above, this fic contains topics that may be triggering including, but not limited to, unethical government experimentation, torture, immortality, traffic accidents, terrorism, and temporary character deaths. Lots and lots of temporary character deaths.
> 
> Now with all of that out of the way, a big shout-out to Kibou for recommending Ajin and also for being a big inspiration to this AU. Ajin's a neat and interesting anime (or manga if you're that kind of person) and you should check it out if you want to.

A team of three people are standing by inside the lab; due to everyone wearing the same uniform, a lab coat, a surgical cap, and a surgical mask, they all look virtually identical. One of them is leaning against the wall, absentmindedly tapping his pencil against his notepad, another sat patiently on an unoccupied seat, and the last one impatiently paces around the room.

That specific member is their technician, Nagata. His frustrated sigh echoes within the sterile lab room. It admittedly isn't the greatest job they have in the world, but it isn't the worst either. At least they pay really well, and all with a hefty bonus just to keep their mouths shut. At the same time, it's also not exactly the cleanest job, but it could've been worse; one of them could've ended up in the sewers instead, for example. Besides, their job here is arguably more important and dignified than that.

They're one of the government's team of researchers who were tasked with handling and managing tests and experiments on organisms known as ajins, or as some people call them, demi-humans. They've only been a recent discovery, ever since sixteen years ago when a soldier fighting a war in Africa, the first ajin to be discovered and detained, had been leaked out to the public.

One thing that everyone knows is this: the ajins may look like humans, but their true nature is anything but that. To die eventually is to be human, and to not do so is against the natural order.

 _'Freaks of nature, that's what they are.'_ Nagata crinkles his nose in disgust. Recalling that made him remember about their latest member and he groans. "What's taking Sanada so long? He's supposed to cart the test subject in here five minutes ago."

"That's Sanada to you. Had a certain someone here not abused his senior position and did it himself, we'd be making progress ten minutes ago." Tatsumi, the team's main researcher, as well the guy who jots down notes during their experiments, interjects, glancing up to him for a second before returning to his notes.

Nagata growls. "After what happened last time, I am not going more than three meters near that thing."

"Unfortunately for you, that is part of your job description."

Before their petty squabble could escalate any further, Sendai, the team's veteran surgeon, gets in-between the two, arms spread as to keep them away from each other. "That's enough, you two." The two glare at each other one last time and huff, looking away.

Their elder sighs in relief. "It's great that you two learned from last time. Besides, you don't have to be cranky now that Sanada's finally here."

As if on cue, the door not-so-gently opens. Sanada the newbie assistant surgeon has his back facing against them. As everyone else did, he too is wearing the same uniform. "Sorry I got late! Hope I didn't keep everyone waiting." He greets them while also grunting at the same time, pulling the medical table in with him.

"Finally. Took you long enough." Tatsumi yawns, stretching himself up.

"Hey, it's not my fault these facilities look all the same. The architects could've at least bothered to make each room distinct from one another."

"Yeah, yeah, sure. Whatever helps you sleep tonight."

Before Sanada's inclusion today, it's always been their team who's handling this ajin subject for years now. Except for Sendai, no one is exactly fond of him. The newbie's first impressions don't help his case either.

As per practical standards, the ajin is wrapped from head to toe in bandages; right now, it's unconscious due to the tranquilizer that's been injected into it. Careful monitoring of dosages is a requirement, as an overdose will only cause the ajin to reset. A fully conscious ajin is far harder to predict and control. Normally, it'll take hours before the effects wear off; in this case, there's nothing that a simple stab to the head or a slash to the throat can't fix.

Sendai, with some help from Sanada, lifts the ajin and placed them onto the testing chair. The ajin's arms were then secured with the leather straps. Tatsumi steps in and snaps a pair of rubber gloves on, placing several electrodes onto the ajin's body, including its chest and neck as well as a cardiac monitor.

Despite their newbie's tardiness, they've set up just in time for the three cameras inside to go online. Three familiar faces flashes onto the screens. One of them was sent here recently, just about a month ago. They order the start of the experiments.

Tatsumi procures a scalpel from the provided medical table and calmly slashes through the ajin's throat. Predictably, the wound heals with no mark in sight. The momentary death expels the rest of the sedative's effects as the ajin stirred, no doubt fully awake.

"Subject's heart rate is lower than normal," Tatsumi notes. "Roughly forty beats per minute."

The newbie's brow furrows. "That doesn't sound good. Should we be concerned?"

 _'Ah, poor silly Sanada. He has no idea this is actually one of the subject's better heart rates.'_ Tatsumi inwardly rolls his eyes at the newbie’s comment. "It doesn't matter."

Nagata will admit, the one positive thing about this ajin was that it's the least fussy of them. They recall having a close call once or twice, but it was passive enough to be reined back in with little to no trouble at all. It didn't mean that they've allowed lowering their guards around this ajin, however.

A cough from one supervisor prevented any more banter, grabbing everyone's attention back. "On the count of three, Nagata, you will begin administering the voltage to our test subject. Start with two hundred forty volts and keep at it for ten minutes."

He can only nod in reply.

"One...Two..."

The technician dials up the desired volts.

"Three!"

He presses the button.

The test subject barely reacted; it's an unfortunately consistent case whenever this particular ajin is involved. Yes, this ajin was the easiest one to handle, but while it surely made managing them easier, it also made collecting data even more frustrating than it already is. It's frustratingly difficult to gauge an accurate analysis if their test subject barely responds to anything; they might as well play a guessing game out of that.

There was a time where reactions were more varied, presumably back when this ajin was first acquired, but for some reason, the only results they received from a few years back are now the same, stagnant response. If it weren't for the subject's barely noticeable heaving chest, it'd be easy to forgive them if one of the researchers thought they'd been conducting tests on a simple dummy and not a dangerous, immortal organism this whole time.

It's rather disappointing, to say the least.

"Increase the intensity by eleven thousand volts." Their new supervisor impatiently orders, his irritated expression visible through the screen. "Extend the duration to twenty minutes as well."

"Pardon me sir, but aren't you supposed to simply observe and not disrupt these experiments? Especially when you were only here a month ago?" Tatsumi, asks with a raised brow.

His inquiry is answered with a harsh bark from that supervisor. "Did I stutter? Hurry your useless asses up and get on with it!"

The other two supervisors are less than amused towards his lack of tact and professionalism but did not comment on it. They may not like it, but despite being new, he is in a higher position. The supervisor's outburst still did what it's supposed to do, and that was to quickly shut the rest of them up. Tatsumi didn't say anything, but the others aside from the newbie knew him long enough to know that he's seething on the inside. Oh well, that’s one more thing to release later at karaoke night.

Nagata glances at the subject for a second. Inwardly, he's glad that he's a good four meters away from the chair it's strapped on; he doesn't exactly know what eleven thousand volts will do to it, and he's not complaining as long as he's away from the exploding range. Shaking his head, his fingers latch onto the dials, turning a few of them further from their last position and once he got the desired volts, he then presses the button.

The ajin test subject's body violently jerks on the chair it was strapped on, its head rears up, its back arches and its fists clenches so tightly.

Two of the researchers who were in closer proximity to it within two meters, Tatsumi and Sanada, bear a close-up witness. Since this was Sanada's first day, he flinches at the rather violent reaction. As for Tatsumi, the rapid grazing of lead against paper isn't audible to anyone but him. _'Interesting.'_ He glances back at the continuously-writhing ajin. _'But it's not the results we're looking for.'_ Anyone who's been working here long enough will know that it's only an involuntary action at best.

As always, not a single noise came from the ajin, nothing that indicates expression of pain.

_Thud. Thud._

At first, Nagata thought his ears are tricking him. The second time it happens, he wonders out loud, "Did anyone hear that?"

"It's probably just you, Nagata." Tatsumi scoffs.

As much as the technician wanted to bite back, he says nothing to that. Not like he could anyway, not when their supervisors are right here.

_Thud. Thud. Thud._

Twenty minutes after the first session finished and their test subject’s in the process of regenerating, there it is again. He begins to glance around his surroundings. "Hey, everyone…"

Tatsumi cuts him off, irritation slowly making its way to him. "Will you quit it, Nagata? I swear I'll—"

"Wait, I think I heard it too." The newbie interjects, perking his head up.

"Sanada, you're not helping!"

Witnessing the discourse, one of the supervisors then questions in a firm tone, "What is going on in there?"

_Thud. Thud._

The three supervisor's eyes widen and their mouths agape in disbelief.

"Where was that coming from?!" The new supervisor demands.

Sendai surveys his surroundings. A particularly loud noise grabs his attention. He searches where it was the loudest and looks for where it might be located. The rest of the team silently follows where he might've caught it.

A dire realization hit them as it got louder.

_Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud._

_'It's coming from the vents-!'_

_Clank._

The ambiance grows quieter as everyone witnesses the vent cover fall onto the floor. Sanada's breathing slows down, tentatively stepping forward to glance up at the now-empty ceiling vent. He squints his eyes. "Wait, I don't see anything up there."

A second passes. Two more seconds pass.

It all happens too quickly for everyone in the room.

It was only a moment ago that Sanada was standing below the empty vent. Before everyone knew it, the newbie's right arm had been messily cleaved up; he shrieks in a disturbingly high pitch. His blood sprays out of the stump and spills onto the floor.

Screams fill the once empty lab. Everyone futilely scrambles out to the exit; their superiors’ panicked yelling of orders is growing deaf to their ears, which is then followed by gunshots in their respective rooms.

Nagata reaches the door; only then, he discovers that it'd been locked from the outside. His panicked breathing borders onto near sobs as he turns around. No one else made it. He couldn't recognize any of his colleagues, not when they are all a mess on the floor. He knew to himself that no human being should be capable of tearing flesh and limbs apart with no effort.

And then, something he can only describe as _claws_ graze towards the back of his head. He can only scream as an invisible force pulls him away from the exit, grasping onto his neck and then throwing him against the other side of the room, aggravating the open injury further as he fell on his back.

He blearily glances to his side and tenses up when he caught sight of bandaged legs. "Oh for the love of God. Why must I be close to this thing now of all times?!"

A loud click echoes through the silenced lab, interrupting him. The last researcher braces himself for the worse, only to become confused when he hears a high-pitched, "Heyo! What's up?" followed by the clacking of heels towards him and the ajin.

He briefly sees a silhouette and then wonders, _'What's a high school student doing in this facility?'_

Nagata shakes his head. No, it must be the blood loss that's making him see things. There's no way a teenager should be able to trespass into a lab as well-guarded as this one.

No one at that age should have the resources nor the tactics needed to break in. If well-trained spies barely managed to do such a thing without alerting the security or getting caught, then what can a simple high school-aged teen hope to do?

Several rapid and sudden stomps on top of his chest forcefully stops those thoughts altogether, and is immediately followed by a loud crack. Nagata lets out a choked gasp, coughing out his saliva. Unimaginable pain spread throughout his torso and he rapidly wheezes. Warm blood seeps through his white lab coat, staining his chest in crimson.

Despite his instincts, he forces himself to look; at the very least, he should know who did this. He sees that it’s a high heel that'd been pressed onto his now shattered chest bone. Though he hadn't seen their face since leaning back further will worsen the head injury, he can't help but have a feeling that his assailant must've seen the look on his face and wanted to see what other reactions he can do.

The intruder, whom he can now confidently assume is a girl, pulls her heel off his wound with a squelch. His basest, most animalistic instincts screeches at him to take the chance, to take advantage of this girl's momentary arrogance and get away while he can. He only manages to succeed pressing a palm onto the floor, a futile attempt to get up.

He'd never be able to do so again after this; he isn't even a few inches away from forcing his trembling form up when another stomp fell on him. This time, it is one calculated and precise strike between his legs.

Nagata has never screamed so much in his life before. It only lasted for a few seconds, and yet it feels so much longer than that.

The girl pulls away.

Even with tears blocking out his eyes, he is somewhat lucid enough to see the girl once again slip her heel into his chest and dug deeper, twisting it now and then. If further aggravating the injury was what she wanted, then she got it. The researcher left literally beneath her mercy lets out primal howls of agony and in each movement, his pitch grew higher.

"Did you need to do that?" A new voice pipes in. He isn't able to see what she, he assumed the new voice to be a girl as well, looked like.

"Huh, didn't you notice? Gee, for someone who's supposed to be the 'best soldier evah', you're so despairingly dense! This smart guy thought he had the balls to insult me! And look at that, poow widdle guy doesn't have any left." Her voice pitches to a high mocking tone as her heel pulled back, only to force itself back into the injury.

"But, I didn't hear him say anything." Judging from the other girl's tone, she might've winced.

"You just proved my point right there, sis!”

A back and forth between the two ensues. He can’t believe it; the two girls are bantering against each other as if they were simply ordinary high school students engaging in gossip, as if they hadn't just trespassed in a government facility and committed mass murder.

He couldn't hear anything clear from those girls; their voices are growing softer and more inaudible as seconds passes on. He grits his teeth, craning his neck and leaning further even as the open wound from the back of his head burns.

Before everything went completely dark, the last thing Nagata saw was the surprisingly delicate face of everyone's killer.

Cold baby blue eyes bore onto his skull. Her soft lips curl upwards into a resemblance of a bear's predatory grin.


	2. Dawn

The scene is the picture definition of idyllic. People are going about their everyday lives. A stray cat or two can be seen loitering around the streets in search of food; the lucky ones receive some from humans cooing over them. Traffic is fairly medium when compared to similar districts. There's nothing quite special to note about the small town of Mitsutoshi in the Chiba Prefecture.

Alongside the somewhat busy streets, several students that are no more than a handful converge onto a singular small crowd. Most if not all of them are rather young; not a single one of them went past the age of at least nineteen years old. They’re wearing the standard winter uniform, consisting of a blazer, an undershirt, and a pair of pants, or in the case of female students, skirts.

With summer vacation over, today is one more average day to school for those returning students.

Among the students, one guy from a group of three asks a friend beside him, "Hey, uh, I don't want to sound too paranoid, but I've been hearing people say that the end of the world's going to happen soon."

"You mean the one where they say the world will end exactly on December twenty-first this year?" The second guy asks with a raised brow.

"Yep, that one." The first guy confirms. "I think it's got something to do with an ancient calendar which also happened to end at this exact year. If it's true, then everyone in the world's only got more than three months left." He clasps his hands around the sides of his body, shivering as he then chatters, "Ahh, I hope it's not actually true! There's a lot of things I still want to do in my life! Like getting married to a hot lady!"

"Don't be ridiculous. And also, nobody wanted to know about that one." The second guy sighs and then rolls his eyes at that notion. "Every sane person knows that the world isn't going to end this year, or if it ever will. Only cults believe in that."

"Hmph." The third guy for their group huffs. "Don't know about you guys, but if the world's going to end, at least I don't have to worry about college. Wish it could end right now so I don't have to go to class today."

"Hey! Don't actually wish for that, will ya?" The first guy shrieks, flailing his hands around in attempts to smack the daylights out of the third guy.

The third guy raises his arms in return as an attempt to deflect those attacks; that is if they can even be called like that. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding!"

While the three continue with their friendly banter, a duo of students that are right in front of them overheard their conversation. It's impossible not to, not with how loud these three guys are being. Aside from the boy, Hajime, inwardly wishing that he hadn't eavesdropped by accident, neither of the two decide to comment at all about the topic the three guys presented.

"Time sure flies a lot faster during semester breaks," Chiaki mentions. Everyone she knows has been back to class for at least five days now and yet the effects of vacation hangover still linger onto her.

Hajime turns grateful at the change of topic, one that helped in distancing itself as far from the three guys' conversation as possible. "Yeah, I can agree with that. It doesn't help that time slows down in class while they're at it." While he didn't personally experience it for himself, Hajime is familiar with said hangover and said effects, and so he sympathizes with his friend.

"If they can switch places, it'd be a lot easier." She yawns, a hand reaching up to somewhat cover her mouth.

He chuckles at those thoughts. "I wish."

As far as schools go, the one they know that everyone went to wasn't far. Depending on where someone lives, it only takes a ten to thirty-minute walk from home, and in some cases, a thirty to forty-five-minute train ride afterwards.

Just as the students step onto the curb before the pedestrian light, the traffic lights turn red. To add insult to injury, many vehicles of different shapes and sizes then zoom past them.

"Aw damn it. It just had to turn red just as we got here." One student grumbles, lifting their head to stare at the offending traffic light; maybe if they glare at it long enough, it'll turn itself back to green. That was their plan, at least. It feels like it's already working for them. At the same time, several of them just learned to sort of accept it and move on; they then start to chat amongst themselves to kill some time until the light turns back to green for them.

As for the two, Hajime takes the chance to press over his stiffened back and shoulder, humming in satisfaction all the while. It's been a while since he'd walked this way. Then again, he did slack off a bit during summer, so that's partially on him.

As for Chiaki's case, if it were the old her, she'd whip out her console and play her favorite game until the light turns green again. She won't be lying if she said that the desire comes out sometimes, but ever since Hajime became her friend years ago, she’s started to tone it down somehow, if not managing to rid of it altogether. He was such a worrywart, always telling her about possible road incidents.

And so, she lets an old habit slowly die hard and opts to pass the time by letting her eyes wander around for a while. The road remains unchanged for the most part. Still, the same old gray color, still the same people and she can recognize the stray cats that are wandering around. Then again, that tall statue on top of the utility pole looks new.

 _'Wait, I don't think that's a statue.'_ She glances back at the supposed 'statue', squinting a bit. For a few moments it was as still as one, but when she sees a small movement from its head, she thought it was just the light tricking her eyes. But the 'statue' moves again, this time shifting its foot to stabilize itself, and she's now convinced she isn't seeing things.

Upon closer inspection, the once-assumed 'statue' is a tall, humanoid figure that perch itself on top of one of the road's utility pole. It's impossible to mistake the figure for a human, not when it’s covered from head to toe in black cloth and if she looks even further, she'd notice that its body as a whole was actually made from that same material, not just simply covered in it. Its limbs are long even by normal standards; its arms have almost the same length as its legs. Since its current position is facing away from her direction, she can't catch a peek on its face.

For now, the figure seems to content itself with observing the crowds of pedestrians below. She'd see it turn its head in different directions, from left to right, and then it'll secure its position by grasping the pole's cross-arms with its curved, hook-like claws.

She thinks it's weird that no one, not even a single pedestrian takes notice of the strange being above them; adults and teenagers were either standing still or converse through their phones while hyperactive children had to be kept still by their parents. It's hard to miss it, not when it looks like it'll tower over everyone in the area.

While she continues to muse on her thoughts about it, she nearly jumps back when the figure turns its head towards her. The figure's head is completely blank like a mannequin. _'Did...did it noticed I was staring at it?'_ Her breath hitches; she wants to look away, but she couldn't. She doesn't know if there were consequences for looking away from it, and she didn't want to find out.

The figure shifts its position once again, this time facing its full body towards her direction. While doing so, it tightens its grip onto the pole. Its head leans forward, and at that moment, she swore it focus its attention solely onto her.

She keeps herself in place, wide eyes failing to withstand the figure's blank, haunting stare.

"Hey, the light's already green!" One of their classmates calls, but she couldn't hear him. Similar calls from the others fell deaf to her hearing.

The figure didn't even have eyes or anything that suggests some form of facial features, and yet it still felt like it was glaring onto her very being—

"Hey, you okay?" Hajime calls out, patting a hand onto her shoulder. That was enough for her to snap back with a gasp. It's only when he gently pulls her with him in crossing the pedestrian lane, that she notices the other group's already a few feet away from them. "You kind of zoned out for a moment there. Everything alright?"

"Did you see that?" She half-blurts, half-whispers to him.

"Hm? You saw something, Chiaki?"

"Up there, on top of the electric post."

He turns his body back and then rears his head up at the specified spot. He squints. "I don't see anything."

 _'How can anyone miss it?'_ She grabs onto his hand and lets his index finger up, gently raising it to help him see the exact spot. "You can't miss it. It's right—" Her friend's finger did point to the same spot where she last saw the figure, but by then, the spot's been long empty. "...It was right there."

Stunned, she lets go of her friend's hand. She looks around the surrounding areas to catch even a glimpse of where the figure had gone to. For something so tall, it somehow managed to slip through everyone's notice. ' _It's gone? But how?'_

Unsure on how to react next, he tries to lighten the situation up a bit. "Sorry, I might've scared it away." He says, under the impression that she saw an abnormally large bird or something similar. He sees her only shake her head with a "No, it's okay." in reply.

After dropping the topic, the two catch up to their schoolmates; those three guys are already a meter away from the school gates. The third guy from the friend group turns around and notices them. _'What's gotten into you two?'_ He wanted to ask but decides against it; besides, he already had a feeling about what it was.

"Nothing happened, that's what." Hajime sharply answers as though he instinctively knew about that unheard question.

The third guy retorts, "Nobody said anything."

"H-Hey," the second guy stammers, interrupting the two boys. Once the second guy has their attention, he shakily points a finger towards the source of his skittishness. "Since when did that weird guy get here, and why is he staring at us?"

Everyone has a good look at the really out of place boy standing on their other side. He looks to be about the same age as them, but he isn't wearing a uniform like them; instead, he's clothed in a black suit and tie much like a businessman would. The strangest thing about the boy is his long and untamed locks of hair; even from their side, they'd see its length reaches his waist at most.

Before these friends get agitated any further, one member furrows his brows. "Actually, I think he's just staring at one person in particular." The third guy notes, jabbing a thumb towards the direction of where the boy's supposedly staring at.

The rest of his friends follow that direction with their eyes and it lead them to someone right beside Hajime, who's now giving the three stooges a heavily resigned, _'Please, you can't be serious'_ look.

He has a bad feeling that one of those stooges will ask his friend about the stranger sooner or later, and in a tactless way too. He knows it's inevitable, and so he beats the three to it instead, turning to her and asking, "Do you think you've seen him from somewhere?"

Chiaki glances at the boy, taking his features in to see if anything familiar rings up to her. She shakes her head. "No, I don't remember meeting someone like him before."

"Huh, guess he might be someone new to town. We haven't had one of those in a while." Hajime muses, a small smile on his face. "See? Nothing everyone has to worry about."

"Or," The classmate whose name Hajime didn't bother to remember, and who also happens to be the first guy from that group, comes up between them and rudely interjects, "maybe he's one of those ajins." He narrows his eyes, pointing an accusing finger towards the boy as if he were a detective and the boy, a suspect to a serious crime.

Seeing that it now sours the conversation's direction, Chiaki calls out to that guy, "Hey, that isn't very funny."

"Shush, no one knows that guy anyway." The first guy raises a finger to silence Hajime's friend for a moment, her words have completely flown over his head, and then returns that same finger to its accusing position. "Look at him, what kind of normal teen dresses up in funeral clothes? If you didn't notice, then pay extra attention to that messy and ridiculously long hair."

And then the first guy proceeds to demonstrate that fact by tracing his finger over an outline of the boy's hair. "Only someone who can't die won't even bother to take care of themselves. Something like that will never cross their minds, not if their body will reset in a healthy form anyway."

As the first guy continues to list off petty reasons to suspect the boy for such, Hajime places a hand onto his forehead and turns to Chiaki, letting her see his _'Can you believe what he's saying?'_ look. It didn't help when the other two completely bought first guy's BS, as they proceed to murmur among each other.

One of them, the third guy, to be exact, cringes. "Those red eyes, I swear I saw them glow for a second there."

"Another sign that guy isn't human, not even a little bit." The second guy shakes his head.

"We should alert the police right now! Everyone knows how dangerous ajins are." The first guy hollers. "We should do it before he kills us or worse—" He never got to finish the rest of his rants.

"Knock it off, you three." Hajime snaps at them with a harsh tone in his voice, interrupting any further relevance to the tired topic. He let them stare at him in disbelief, as a way to cool himself down. When he's certain he's calm enough, he adds, "Ajins aren't something to be taken lightly or joked about. You of all people should know that."

With that over, he refuses to entertain the three further. "Come on, we should get to class before the bell rings." He turns away from the three, silently urging Chiaki to come with him. As she did so, she turns her head to check on the three, only to see them grumble.

"What was Hinata's problem?"

"Yeah, we were just playing around for a bit, that's all. A little bit of harmless fun isn't going to hurt anyone."

"He's always been a mood-killer. A guy like him wouldn't know about anything even if it hits him right in the face."

Having heard enough, she takes her attention off them and back to her friend, feeling concern for him. "Hajime..."

They’ve known each other for a long time now, and so, he had a good idea of what she's about to say next. Letting a small, relaxed smile on his lips, he tells her, "Thanks for the concern, but I'm okay. Honestly, it wasn't that bad. I don't like confrontations, but someone's gotta tell them to stop being a bunch of pricks." He sighed. "I hope I wasn't too harsh on them."

"Even if you were, you're still in the right." She reasons. "That was rather uncalled for them to do."

Hajime can't say much about that. Chiaki truly has no idea how much he appreciates her company.

* * *

Compared to the events before this, classes were relatively uneventful. Same classmates, same teacher, and still the same old amount of class activities. On the plus side, besides Hajime being rather stiff when confronted with the trio of friends they shared a hometown with, there were no lingering hostilities between them for that one incident.

Throughout the whole time before the class itself went to the end for the day, Chiaki's mind will often linger away from the subject that's being discussed and instead, it'll focus on the window onto her left.

Perhaps if she looked there long enough, she'd catch a peek on the figure she saw earlier and perhaps then, have her questions about its exact nature answered.

When it's clear that no, she most likely won't see it again anytime soon, she inwardly sighs and forcefully drags her mind back to pay attention to the topic.

Maybe she's just seeing things after all.

* * *

When it came to school days like now and other school days before their high school, both of them would often walk to their school together; but, when it came to the end of the day, Hajime wouldn't be able to join her on the walk home. It's almost ironic.

 _"I'm sorry. My parents got me to a cram school. I won’t be able to make it home until past ten."_ She remembered him telling her that to explain why he can't do so the first time around. It kind of hurt back then, but she can see the reason why; she can understand that his parents only want the best for their son and his future as a whole. She knows that her own would've done the same thing.

She decides not to linger on those thoughts. Before meeting him, she'd been used to walking to and from school alone. That alone couldn't have changed everything.

In the past, her next stop after class is to go to her favorite arcade nearby. Technically, people knew it's not exactly encouraged for students to lounge around public areas after class, but that didn't stop her back then and it certainly won't stop her now. When she reaches the same place, she pauses on her tracks.

Someone’s right there, on the public bench in front of the town's arcade. It's him, the boy from this morning.

_'What's he doing here?'_

Chiaki had little to no idea on what to do next; socializing was never her strong suit and it's more of Hajime's thing, after all.

The boy speaks up, letting her hear his voice for the first time. It's softer than she expected from someone of his appearance. "It's rude of you to stare like that." And he said all that without looking once towards her direction.

"I'm sorry." She apologizes out of reflex, lightly bowing her head. "I just saw you here, and well, we did see each other in the morning." She sneaks a peek at him; his poker-faced expression didn't change in the slightest. Recalling the event, she also adds, "And, I want to apologize on behalf of my classmates this morning. Everything they said to you was rude and uncalled for."

It wasn't particularly loud, but she did hear a scoff.

"It didn't matter much to me." The boy replies.

Chiaki turns her attention back on the arcade's entrance for a moment; she's supposed to have gone inside by now, but right now, after seeing this boy on the public bench, she thinks back on what Hajime said back then.

_'Maybe he is new to this town.'_

She holds her hand out to him and proceeds to introduce herself. "My name's Nanami Chiaki."

The boy briefly looks at her offered hand. Despite his stoic expression, his own arm is half-raised in clear hesitation. His fingers twitch while his hand stays frozen in the air.

She quickly sees his reaction and sheepishly retracts her hand. "You don't have to shake hands with me if you don't want to."

He visibly relaxes himself, letting his hand down and then placing it back on his lap.

_'Physical contact is out of the question, then. That's okay, though.'_

"Is it okay if I take a seat?" She asks.

He dully replies, "Do whatever you wish."

And so, she did. She takes a seat on the bench and is, in her opinion, a respectable couple of centimeters of space away from him. Glancing back at him, she asks, "What's your name?"

The boy's face didn't show it, but his body betrays him by freezing up for a moment. At first, she wondered if she might've done something wrong, only for the boy's briefly tense body to relax as if nothing happened and he answers, "....it's Izuru."

"Izuru..." She repeats his name, getting herself used to its syllables. She didn't stop the genuine smile on her face as she then remarks, "That's a cool name! Is it your family name? Or is it maybe your given name—"

"I don't have any." The boy, now known as Izuru, cuts off in the same calm tone he used before.

"Oh." She slumps, knowing that she hit a sore spot she shouldn't have. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry like that."

"You wouldn't have known." Aside from that reassurance, he didn't reply to anything else related to that topic.

She got the message; she won't ask him about anything too personal. It's fair since they've only met today.

Still, she can't help but wonder why he visited this town. It's far from a tourist spot and it's just like any other ordinary town in the region. In fact, it can be compared to the most bare bones town most players begin with in a lot of games, especially RPGs.

"There is nothing wrong with normalcy." Izuru suddenly speaks up as though he read her mind. A part of her is surprised at that, but at the same time, there were a lot of people who've told her even with her plain facial expressions, she's really easy to read.

She can only let out a relaxed chuckle. "Yeah, that makes sense. It is easier to take in compared to the big cities."

Before she knew it, she was conversing with him rather smoothly, even though he isn't much of a talker and was more of a listener kind of guy. He didn't talk about things related to him, nothing about his hobbies, his likes or dislikes, nothing; instead, he seems to prefer hearing her thoughts and occasionally respond now and then. Overall, he's a pretty mellow guy and if she didn't think her classmates were, in Hajime's words, pricks for picking on him before, then she would now.

As time went on, she was so engaged she didn't even notice the sun had set already. Chiaki stops herself from saying anymore into their discussion. "Oh, it's already late. I'm sorry,” She bows her head to him again, “But I think that's enough for today."

"That's understandable."

She hears him say as she stands up from her seat.

As Chiaki gathers her belongings and is preparing herself to leave, she turns back to him and asks, "Hey, Izuru? Is it okay for me to come to see you again tomorrow?"

He doesn't reply. Before she can wonder if it was something she said, two words come out of him.

"Next Saturday."

"Huh?" She almost blinks.

"Next Saturday." Noticing her confusion, Izuru clarifies, "It happens that today was a Saturday and thus, I am allowed to spend some free time. However, for the following days, I'd be busy and I can only remain available every Saturday. Will it suffice?"

Chiaki thinks about it. While it's for the wrong reasons, her classmates did have a point about him wearing a suit and tie, which isn't something a normal teenager would wear. Therefore, it's not unreasonable for her to assume that maybe he's from a rich family who's here for his personal reasons.

She nods, completely understanding why he might’ve done that. "Yeah. Saturday sounds good."

"Then it's settled. I'll be here next Saturday again." He confirms. "In the meantime, you shouldn't do anything reckless on your way home."

She had no idea what drove him to say that. Maybe it's something to do with his background and so, he thought it'd be a piece of good advice for her? Either way, it's pretty thoughtful of him to do so.

As she went on her way, she waves back at him. "Don't worry, I won't! See you soon!"

Izuru’s silhouette seems to get smaller and smaller as she went further away from his vicinity, until the boy is no longer visible within the darkened streets.


	3. Retrospect

A week passed since then. They've survived the first week of their second semester without much trouble, so there's that. The following days after have settled down just a little bit once everyone slowly eased themselves back into their daily routine.

Monday wasn't as bad as the first one; it thankfully felt more like a warm-up of sorts. A warm-up to something worse, sure, but still a warm-up nonetheless. Their homeroom teacher was lax enough to let them take it slow for the day.

Tuesday. After a week of giving students some space, the teachers set themselves back into their strict modes in preparation for class activities and such. In addition to stuff like that, the freshmen were now on their last stages before completely acclimating to the school. Several of them grew comfortable around their upperclassmen, and in the case of a few handfuls, even managed to get themselves into their upperclassmen's friend circles.

Wednesday. This is where everything goes down. Teachers turned themselves up to further and no one truly knew if this would be their limit or not. Loads of school work was inevitable.

Thursday was the same as Wednesday with minor differences. Those differences were mainly student gossip on different topics relevant to that day; someone might've overheard a celebrity rumor now and then whether they wanted to or not. On the bright side, any small talks about December twenty-one have settled down a bit. Hajime roughly estimated a month before that talk resurges.

Friday was just like the two days before it.

And then things turned radically different this Saturday.

* * *

Like every other day, it all starts in the same pattern. Wake up, get decent, take a walk then hitch a ride (preferably a train), and by the time you get there, hope that you get there an hour early without any trouble. If not, then hope that you managed to at least get there before the second bell rang.

Their teacher comes in with a smile that hides her intentions. She greets their classmates with a cheerful, "Good morning, everyone!"

Under obligation to do so or face the consequences, all students respond with a loud and clear, "Good morning!" in return. The loud volume is required so that at least that way, the teacher won't notice a student, or two, or even a trio of them who sound less than enthusiastic about the day.

Attendances are checked. A latecomer or two came in and were promptly disciplined on the spot. Some show bits of their pity to the poor tardy students. No one made the risk of making side comments about it, unless if they want to join in with the punishments.

Once attendance was settled, their teacher continues from the last topic they've had yesterday and requests everyone to return to the page where they last left off. Hajime turns his textbook to the last page from the same topic, eyes focused.

Around the thirty-minute to forty-five mark of the teacher explaining the last bits, she checks the clock up on the wall, right above the blackboard. She hums in thought and then turns to her students, swiftly closing her held textbook in one hand. "Before we end this off, today we'll have a topic I'm sure everyone will be interested in for once. Don't think I didn't notice you falling asleep in my class before!" She didn't mention any specific names, but one sheepish student or a few more cough.

The next thing that their teacher said proceeds to stir up all sorts of different reactions from each student. In Hajime's case, hearing those ten deadly words cause him to stiffen up in his seat, which didn't go unnoticed by Chiaki, who’s sitting right behind him.

"Does anyone here have any idea about what ajins are?"

A chorus of varying answers erupts from the class. Plenty of those responses came from the same students, but there were some which came from another student, usually those who've never raised their voice until now.

It got a little bit louder than the teacher anticipated. "Okay, okay. I know you're all very excited, but please settle down for a moment, everyone!" The teacher had to raise her voice a bit than she usually had to. She waves her hands around, gesturing the students to quiet themselves for a moment and settle down.

It took some more coaxing from the teacher and even some students before everyone finally did as told. The teacher was sure there are no more interruptions in place and so, continues with the lecture.

"As you all probably know," She begins, "The ajins were first discovered sixteen years ago in Africa." A student who raised her hand momentarily interrupts the teacher. The teacher pauses, turning towards the raised hand. "Yes?"

Said student tentatively stands up from her seat. "What happened to the first ajin ever discovered?"

"Interesting question you have there." The teacher remarks and causes the student to perk up. Not even a second later, to the student's disappointment, she then tells her, "I'm afraid no one knows the answer to that question yet. The first detained ajin's existence had been leaked, yes, but at the moment, their current status and location remain highly confidential. Now, you can ask any remaining questions you may have right now at the end of the discussion."

The student slumps back on her seat, no doubt bummed out by the answer, or rather, the lack of one. Her expectations should've been lowered whenever this teacher's concerned, interesting topic or not.

The teacher continues, "Anyways, currently, there are around forty-eight recorded ajins worldwide, three of them having been reported here in Japan. There's a possibility that the count is possibly much, much higher than that. However, it's notoriously difficult to find one unless if the ajin died first, preferably where other humans are around to witness such an event." The teacher lightly giggles. "Otherwise, they can keep that fact to themselves and blend in among us humans surprisingly well."

The teacher's last sentence has the immediate effect of causing several of the students to nervously look around each other. They wonder if any of these people they knew is an ajin in hiding right now, and if there is a way to tell which one is human and which one isn't.

She snaps her fingers, catching their attention back. She lightly laughs at their reactions. "Now, now, don't worry. I highly doubt anyone here can be one; as I've mentioned earlier, ajins are a very rare specimen. Of course, unless if say, an earthquake or a fire was to happen right now, then we’d know for sure, but that won't happen. At least, not if everyone followed the drills."

As light-hearted their teacher tries to make it out to be, it's obvious to anyone paying attention that it only cause students to eye each other with even more wariness compared to earlier. It’s a lot less obvious compared to the observances made the first time.

Chiaki didn't like the oppressive atmosphere that was encouraged by this. Hajime wishes that he prepared a pair of earbuds for this moment. The only thing he can do is daze off somewhere and try to block everyone out as much as he can.

The lecture dragged on and on; the teacher mostly repeated common knowledge about ajins and simply reinforced certain beliefs about them. Everyone knew that there were three ajins in their country; people had a good idea on who the first one was, people were around when the second one was discovered on the run and eventually taken into custody, and no one knew anything about the third one aside from them being from Kanto, which was too vague to be a clue. It only lasted for fifteen minutes at most, but for Hajime, it felt too long to be that.

Finally, the teacher wraps up the lecture with the typical, "Alright everyone, if you have any questions regarding the topic, don't hesitate to ask!"

Hajime sighs and rolls his eyes when he saw a good amount of hands shot up in the air.

The student who's lucky enough to be chosen first asks, "Ajins can't die, can they? I mean, no matter what you throw at them, they'll just get back up like nothing happened, right?"

"As far as we know, that's the case with them." The teacher lightly shrugs as if to tell him _'Well, duh. They can.'_ and the student takes the answer just like that.

The next student stands up after the teacher called for them. They glance around at their classmates, wondering if their question won't let them be ridiculed. Swallowing, they ask, "Is it true that ajins aren't human, not even a little bit?"

Giggles and snickers are loudly heard in their direction.

"Of course they're not." The teacher smiles the kind of smile an adult would use when explaining difficult or adult topics to children. It also included the somewhat poorly-disguised condescending tone as well. "They can't die, so they certainly can't feel the same things we feel, like pain or empathy."

There were more questions, but Hajime blocks them out as best as he could. Many of those questions were ridiculous or just the same ones worded differently.

"Say," The latest student didn't stand up from their seat and proceeds to ask the question anyway, "If you managed to catch an ajin, won't the government give you a reward of one million yen if you turn the ajin in?"

A chorus of "Ooh's", "Aah's", and "Woah's" resonates within the classroom.

The teacher's less than amused but decides to reply anyway. "Hmm, while there are no confirmed testimonials as of yet, that's what everyone seems to believe. But personally, I think that managing to catch something as rare as an ajin in the first place is its own reward too, don't you agree?"

Chiaki swears she hears a pencil snapping at that very moment; the source of which come from the desk right in front of her. She inwardly frowns; she knows that Hajime never liked hearing the topic about ajins whether it is from casual conversations or academic lessons like this. He never disclosed her about it nor did he tell her the reason why back then.

One day, curiosity got the best of her and with that, she gathered enough courage to ask him about it. Looking back, she realized it was rather tactless of her younger self and not to mention, so very insensitive.

~.~.~

"Hajime," She approached him from behind, right where he shoveled dirt up in their school's garden. "Can I ask you something?"

He grunted, pausing for a moment to turn his face to her. "Sure. What is it?"

"Do you hate ajins?"

When those words were released from her, Chiaki immediately wished she could put them back in when she saw Hajime grew pale. Her friend's breathing became funny and his eyes no longer focused on her. She called out to him and he snapped himself back.

Once Hajime recovered, he swallowed a lump that threatened to form in the throat, nearly choking out, "Where did you get that from?"

"I..." She fumbled over her words, most likely due to the shock from her friend's reaction to what she thought was an innocent question. "I noticed you'd get a bit angry whenever you hear someone talk about them."

He softly laughed, but it wasn't the cheerful ones she was used to. This one had hints of bitterness within. "No. It's...it's nothing like that at all. I just don't want to hear about it."

Chiaki wanted nothing more than to apologize. She wanted to go back before she asked that stupid question. Reload and then delete her mistake.

Hajime shook his head, a hand raised in reassurance; the small shovel he once held lied forgotten on the dirt. He told her in a serious and yet, sadly pleading tone, "Don't take this the wrong way, but please, please don't ever bring it up again."

~.~.~

She never asked him again since.

Maybe the idea of someone who won't stay dead no matter what is a terrifying concept to him, and to be fair, it is. Either way, she won't interrogate him about it and let him initiate discussions related to them if he feels comfortable. Until then, she'll respect his silence on the topic.

Aside from her, none of their classmates heard or paid any mind to it; even the teacher continues by answering more questions the students might have. They wouldn't be able to anyways, not if the student responsible made sure it won't draw attention to himself.

Saturday felt longer than it should've had.

* * *

"Thank God it's over."

If anyone from their class hears that, they might've assumed that her friend was talking about the first half of the day before lunch; they'd be partially right.

Luckily for them, no one's going to hear that except for the two of them. No one goes up here, which makes it a perfectly discreet hangout spot for them without having outsiders spy on them and generate weird rumors. They've probably already done that anyway.

Sitting here on one of the provided benches, just the two of them eating their lunches, it feels like a scene she'd usually see from a visual novel or an anime.

Technically, they weren't supposed to stay here on the rooftop, no students were allowed to be here in all honesty, but then again, it's not like that rule is strictly enforced in this school. Maybe that's why a lot of past students got away with it a lot, so long as they don't accidentally fall off or do something equally stupid. (Not like they'd be able to do it anyway, even if they wanted to, not with the steel fences and rails that were half a meter taller than the average student.)

They're a bunch of rebels.

While engaging in friendly banter with each other, it never crosses her mind to bring up that particular lecture, not when he showed obvious discomfort about it. Even though they're both pretending that teacher never gave them that lecture, she can't help but notice that his body remained tense and he had a little more speed in each bite than usual.

"Hey." Chiaki puts her lunchbox away, absentmindedly staring into the blue noon skies. "Do you remember the boy from last week?"

"Mm, yeah, I do," Hajime replies, having just taken the last bite from his favorite snack. "What about him?"

She hums, mentally recapping the event from the last time she saw the boy, around less than a week ago. "I've talked with him after classes. I didn't plan to, but I apologized to him in the place of our classmates since they won't do it any time soon. After that, we ended up talking and it turns out he's a mellow guy." It's only after she speeds over that part that she nearly forgot an important detail. "Oh, and his name's Izuru."

"Izuru?" He cocks his head.

"That's what he told me." She shrugs.

He scrunches up, placing a hand onto his chin in thought. "It's an unusual name. Aside from the founder of Hope's Peak Academy, I don't think I've heard of anyone else with a name like that before." Shaking his head, he then leans himself back, splaying his arms on the back of the bench. "But then again, I've heard of some parents who name their kids after famous people, so it doesn't sound that far-fetched."

"Could be that."

"It's great that you've made peace with him and all, but what brought this up?"

"I don’t know, I just remembered. I'm supposed to meet up with him again after classes today, or at least that's what we've agreed on." Chiaki replies, having no clue of the ramifications of that sentence could mean when heard by anyone other than Hajime.

Luckily, Hajime is a rational person. Unluckily, Hajime also happens to be her closest friend.

"You serious? Nanami 'can't beat a single dating sim' Chiaki managed to get a date before I can?" There's a stupidly big grin plastered onto his face as he says that; a hand is also dramatically placed onto his chest for greater effect. "That hurts. You finally got tired of having me around huh?"

In a different world and scenario, those words would've made her concerned for his mental health. In this case, however, the way Hajime worded them with humor in his tone, complete with a slight jab on her cheek with a finger and a light teasing giggle after that, there's nothing to worry about a good ribbing now and then.

Chiaki adamantly shakes her head. "What, no, no. It's nothing like that and you know it." She playfully jabs back him in the shoulder with an elbow in return. "If it was a real date, I'd tire him out with waiting; I'll be stuck like one of those long loading screens—you know those, right? He'd be gone by the time I managed to say a 'maybe?' to him."

"Then it means he's not worth it. Anyone who leaves before you can even answer back to them has no idea on who they’re missing out on." He waves his right hand.

She’d disagree with him on that; she knows she isn’t that interesting of a person. Still, she keeps herself quiet and listens to him continue on.

"Okay, but seriously, I think you should still be careful with that guy." He predicted that he'd be greeted with a dirty look from her, so he raises a hand to let himself explain, "And before you say anything, no, it has nothing to do with that awful joke those three decided was a good idea to make. Don't get me wrong; I mean, he is still someone we haven't met before. For all we know, he could be the son of a big yakuza clan or something like that."

She shrugs. "I don't think he'll try anything. Even if was a son of a yakuza like you said, I don't think that's enough to completely sum him up as a person." She adds, "Who knows, maybe he has no idea about it or even if he does, doesn't support that lifestyle?"

 _'You and your innocent way of thinking through things. I hope it's not going to bite you back someday.'_ Hajime sighs. "Guess I have no choice but to trust your judgment on that part. But in case if he does anything that'll make you uncomfortable, don't hesitate to let me know." He flexes his fingers to prove his point. "I'll teach him a lesson."

She can't help but let a laugh at that display. Yeah, that won't intimidate anyone. Still, she appreciates his sincere support, and this is after he theorized that Izuru could be a yakuza prince. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it." He says with a smile.

* * *

Shortly after, a slew of thoughts threatened to overwhelm Chiaki as she walks from school by herself that afternoon. Yeah, she and Izuru did agree to meet again this Saturday at the same place, but in hindsight, she'd completely forgotten to mention a specific time. A part of her wonders if she should've made things clearer instead of assuming others would know immediately.

_'But then again, Saturday classes in our school are common knowledge here. Maybe.'_

In little time at all, she got to her destination with no trouble. As expected, the boy was still right there in front of the arcade, sitting on the public bench at the same spot, exactly as it'd been the last Saturday.

She can't help but say, "I didn't keep you waiting, did I?" once she’s within his view.

For a small fraction of time, the silent boy's guard was let down upon hearing her soft voice; his stoic face melts away to an expression of disbelief before returning to its former state. It's brief enough that someone would've noticed only if they're observant enough. "You've arrived." He dryly states, turning his head away.

She's slightly taken aback by what he said. Unsure on how to take that comment in, she replies with the first thought that came into her mind, so that she doesn't end up keeping him waiting through thinking of different responses. "Um, we did agree on it last week, didn't we? You did say you'd only be here on Saturdays, I think."

"I do remember I said that once. A week has passed since that arrangement. I simply didn't think that you'd remember it."

She didn't know whether she should feel offended by that or not. "If I did, that'd be very awful of me to do, right?"

Curiously, he didn't reply to that, not verbally at least. He looks away from her, sure, and despite that, the palm of his hand taps onto the bench's surface.

Like the week before, she sets her bag aside, taking a seat on the public bench with a couple of centimeters away from Izuru. To lessen some ice between them, she starts up even if sounded awkward on her end. "So, Izuru, how was your past week? I bet you've been busy with a whole lot of things to do." A smirk graces her as she then teasingly adds, "You remember you said that once, right?"

If they'll recount about this particular event in the near future, he'd tell her she was hearing things, but she knew she heard a snort from him and she will stand by that until everything ends.

"I still do. It was rather unnecessary of you to ask." His brow ride creases down.

"Sorry," She shrugs, kind of apologetic but at the same time, a little bit of the slightly-teasing attitude remains there. "I couldn't help myself."

With the way Izuru huffs, not even she managed to hear a bit of it. "To answer your question, simply a daily routine of meeting up with people I could care any less about and if I had remaining time left, it's used for people-watching. Nothing deviated from those schedules."

"People-watching? You mean like observing the crowds of people outside?"

"Exactly as you put it."

Other people might've been concerned with Izuru's 'hobby' and might assume the worst. She'll admit that it's a bit unusual, but who is she to judge?

As if to quickly change the topic, Izuru then says, "Since you've asked me about my past week, it's only fair that I'll ask you the same thing, would it?"

Chiaki thinks about it and after a second, nods. "Yeah, you're right." She mentally recaps her past week. "It's nothing interesting either; I just wake up, go to school and then come by the arcade at the end of the day. Just simple, ordinary school days like anyone else have."

"You sound tired, perhaps even bored, of performing the same daily routine."

"You could say that. But it's not all bad. I do have someone who helps to make everything feel easier." She let a smile out, fondly thinking about how much of a difference Hajime has made to her life.

Their conversations went on with random topics in mind. Something continuously nags Chiaki at the back of her mind; she didn't know what it was until it hit her.

"Oh, I've been meaning to ask you this, but I thought that asking about it last week might've been at the wrong time. Is it okay if I ask that question to you? It's fine if you'd rather I don't."

"Go ahead."

"So, what brought you to this town? I mean, it's not exactly a tourist spot or anything like that. Do you have any relatives here or, maybe someone you knew before?"

"It has nothing to do with the reasons you've listed. I've been dropped off, and this town simply happened to be the one I've stuck around with."

"You mean your parents or guardians just left you here?"

"In a way." He brushes it off once he saw her look at him with concern, which he felt isn't needed. "It's nothing to be concerned about. I can take care of myself."

That statement, along with the cool tone he covered it up with, only serves to make her wince internally. She didn't have a good feeling about that but decided not to say anything, not wanting to offend or aggravate him in any way. The same thing goes for asking what kind of people they were.

Silence.

Leaning back on the bench, Chiaki couldn't help but blurt out, "You know, I don't think you're a bad guy, Izuru."

"What made you say that?" Izuru slightly tilts his head to face towards her, eyes narrow.

"I don't know either, but I mean it when I said that." She says with a small shrug.

He figures he won't get a meaningful answer anytime soon, and so, he settles that with a comment. "You truly are an odd person, Nanami."

* * *

The sun has nearly set.

Chiaki places her bag over her shoulder. Her brows scrunches up; she feels like she might forget something if she leaves too soon right now, but she can't put her finger on it.

As if it suddenly came to her, she turns to face him and asks, "Hey, Izuru, do you mind if we stay in contact with each other?"

Izuru simply shrugs at her suggestion. "I suppose I don't."

"That's great!" Her hand reaches into her bag's pocket to go and fish her phone out. "We can trade numbers if you'd like—"

He interrupts her before she can finish pulling her phone out, as well as her sentence with a blunt, "That option isn't viable."

Her hand retracts from her bag, leaving the phone back inside. "Why not?"

"To put it bluntly, I don't have an available phone number at this time. Do not ask me why I don't."

"I wasn't going to. It's okay if you don't have one, really." She places two fingers over her chin. "Hmm, what about emails, then, if you have one?"

He doesn't reply immediately, as if he’s considering the option. Once he decided, he replies, "Emails should suffice."

"Do you want me to give you my email address first?" She asks, once again going over the insides of her bag, only this time, she's looking for a spare notebook and pen.

"That won't be necessary." His hand grabs something from his pocket and beats her to it, handing her a piece of paper.

She turns over the small piece of paper and sees his email address written on it. Before she can ask him what he meant by what he said earlier, she thinks she can understand why when Izuru explains in less than three words.

"I can wait."

* * *

Back in her residence, Chiaki is starting to write up her first email to Izuru. She double-checks his email address and the message itself, making sure that got his address right. Once she deems it okay enough, she sends it to him.

She sets her phone down and lets her body splay over the bed.

She's not expecting a reply from him at this time, not when it's already so late.

It's alright, she can wait.


	4. Reach

It's past midnight.

Streets are as empty as it's expected around this time. No harsh light, aside the somewhat bright street lamps, is present around the corners. It's possible that a police station, or any other essential buildings for that matter, are open around this time, but none were remotely close to this dimly-lit area.

This kind of scene would've made normal people shudder to be in.

For one boy, the mentioned scene is more than suitable enough to keep unwanted attention away.

His body leans onto one of those street lamps for support. Izuru refocuses his attention on the new phone given to him more than a month ago; he’s rereading the message he received a few hours earlier.

Subject: Hey!

Before I start this off, I want to quickly apologize in advance if I gave you any trouble for sending you an email at this time, especially now that it's already so late. Since you've written down your email address for me, I figured that it'll only be fair if I let you know mine by sending the first message to that address.

If things haven't changed for you, I'll be looking forward to seeing you next Saturday again. In the meantime, we can use emails to talk whenever you want. I hope we can continue to be great friends in the near future.

Nanami Chiaki

_'I don't know what else I've expected.'_ He thinks to himself as he had yet to reply. Contact with other people he barely knew wasn't a skill he prided himself with and neither is it something that he thoroughly enjoys. Most of the time, those other people didn't bother to meet up with him, and he was alright with that.

Now? One of those other people actually managed to speak to him without a hint of contempt or any ulterior motives in mind. He had no idea how to deal with this other than to put up with it.

Izuru exhales. He might as well get this over with. It's best not to leave her hanging, no matter how understanding she'd turn out to be, even if he decides not to reply to it tonight. His fingers deftly tap all over the phone's screen as he types out his reply.

In his initial draft, his message was straight to the point and also, rather blunt about the fact he wouldn't be able to reply as immediately. He reviews it a few times and then once he thought it was good enough, he sends it.

A normal person would've thought that sending a reply so late would've been suspicious. Izuru might've agreed with that, but in this case, he had nothing to worry about. They've only had two meetings so far, and in that short amount of time, he could easily surmise the kind of person Chiaki is.

He doubts that Chiaki would be the type to overanalyze the reply and then notice the time he sent it, unlike someone else he knows. From what little information he gathered up about her, it's more likely she wouldn't care or even notice the timeframe it's been sent and if anything, she'd be delighted to receive a reply from him at all.

That's just how she is in his eyes. Too soft. Too easy to read. Too childlike. Completely unaware of how the world truly works.

Now that the matter has been settled, he checks over his phone's clock. Examining the still dark sky above, he estimates at least five hours before the sun rises and people go around doing their business for the day. Five hours before those two wakes up and inevitably ring him up for their schemes.

 _'Five hours before sunrise sounds satisfactory enough.'_ He decides. There's plenty of more time for himself, then.

The unpleasant feeling of not only his eyelids, but also his body as a whole, urged themselves to droop over was as threatening as it's always been for him. He's used to it at this point, forcing his eyes and body to stay alert for the time being as he leaves his spot. Although he knows that chances of anyone being out and about at this time are slim, if not outright impossible, Izuru examines his surroundings.

As soon as he confirms there wouldn't be anyone who'd witness him, including night patrols or teenagers breaking curfew, he walks himself to an empty alleyway. He fishes out an extremely valuable item from his pocket, one that proved to be essential for his lifestyle.

It’s a simple, and easily hidden, folding blade.

When Izuru left the alleyway shortly after, he struts out with the same, optimal energy as a fully-conscious person would've had. Fatigue no longer plagues his body.

* * *

On that Sunday afternoon, Chiaki perks up when she checked over her inbox messages. _'Oh, he replied today.'_ She sits herself up and then leans her back onto the bed's headboard as she reads Izuru's email reply.

Subject: Re: Hey!

I've received your message as well as your email address. It didn't trouble me in the slightest, so you may cease your worrying about it. That said, keep in mind that because our secondary medium of communication is through emails and not through texts or calls, don't expect replies to be as immediate or quick as the ones that I've mentioned. I will try to reply when I can, however.

It's far too early for you to say that, but I'm not necessarily opposed to it.

Izuru

_'He doesn't seem to mind it. I think that's a good sign. Maybe.'_

Izuru's the kind of person who's very difficult to read. He talks in a monotonous tone and often uses words that are a bit hard to understand at first. Aside from rare occasions, his face never really changes to reflect any emotions he'd probably feel at the moment. It's easy to misinterpret his facial expressions or the things he says. That's probably the reason why those three classmates singled him out and thought it'd be fun to pick on him.

Deciding not to dwell on that matter any further, Chiaki begins to think up a reply to him. While doing so, she can't help but think, _'Am I going too fast with this? Won't he think I'm a little clingy by replying to him right now? He said he won't reply immediately and I understand that, so would it be bad if I did just that?'_

Her message is long finished but she hadn't sent it yet due to that issue. Her thumb hovers over the send button now and then but never truly presses it down.

Unable to truly decide, she put it off until late evening came; only then did she let things go and sent the email. Thinking about it afterward, sending it now might've been the best time because tomorrow's the start of a long week and so, it'll probably take longer. As far as common knowledge goes, there are some groups of people who hate Mondays. She considers herself a semi-official member of one of those groups.

Subject: Re: Re: Hey!

Great to know that you got it. Also, I'm glad to know it wasn't the case at all. I'll definitely remember that. I think it's alright since we could still meet up in person whenever possible or if you really wanted to. By the way, you don't have to reply immediately. Take all the time you need if you happen to be busy. I completely understand.

Hope you have a good week, Izuru.

Nanami Chiaki

Now with that out of the way, she lets herself dive face-first onto her pillows and sheets. One last, somewhat coherent thought came to her mind before she lets herself off into dreamland.

_'I wonder if Hajime and Izuru would get along well. Maybe after Izuru becomes more comfortable around people, they can meet. That’s maybe.'_

* * *

They've had a steady set of meetings since then: talk about stuff through emails, meet up on Saturday afternoons, and then the same thing again next week. That's been their whole routine until the end of the year came.

When it came to their meetings, the local arcade is their usual go-to place to meet up. It was the easiest place to set since it's just across the lane where the school's route went.

Obviously, the world didn't end on the twenty-first day of December, much to the relief of those three stooges and the resignation of Hajime ("They'd make up a new date for when the world will end, will they? It's not the first time it happened." He told her with a sigh and a shake of his head.)

Chiaki tried to invite Izuru to join in their Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, respectively. He turned down both offers and said he had something else to do during those times. She'll admit, she's kind of disappointed that he wouldn't be able to make it on either occasion, but it's alright. There's always the next year if possible.

That said, it didn't stop her from giving him a debatably late Christmas gift a week after the New Year. She didn't know what kind of items Izuru liked since he never mentioned or hinted about any likes or dislikes, and when she got the gift, she didn't even know whether he'd like it or not.

His face would never show it and he'd never tell anyone about it, but that was the day he began using a case for his once-naked phone. If anyone ever saw the phone case's cute paper boat design at the back, none of them said a thing about it.

* * *

Nothing changed much from how things went on last year. She wasn't able to see Izuru during the vacation days; he mentioned that he'd be out of town during that time but he said he'd be back there by early April or so. He might've been gone that time, but they kept in touch through emails nonetheless.

He mentioned in those emails that he's practically forced to spend quality time with two people he didn't want to be with, which Chiaki can only assume were his parents.

Around a month had then passed since the start of the senior high school third year's first semester. It just so happens that this early May was the season when the cherry blossoms bloom all over the country. Hajime almost managed to invite her for a flower viewing for Sunday that week, but then he got dragged away by his parents again at the last second, which has always been a recurring theme now that they both thought about it. She's starting to think his parents going a little too far now.

She got surprised when she then received an email from Izuru asking her for the same thing. He told her that those two people he's stuck with have their own plans on that Sunday, which gave him some free time other than Saturday for once.

And now, she's here at a different meeting place this time. Normally it'd be weird to see almost no one around at a place like this, not when someone is informed about the seasonal event. When she thought back to what her new friend told her, it made a little bit of sense.

Izuru mentioned in their last email that he found a forest of cherry blossoms nearby where there aren't as many people around. Other tree parks were becoming crowded, so it's nice to have a spot just for the two of them here. It probably helps it's on a mountainside by their town.

 _'I wonder if he's already here.'_ It won't be surprising if he was. Maybe someday, she'll ask him to tell her his secret on how to be crazily punctual when it came to important meetings.

She then remembers that he also told her he'd be near the tallest tree in the forest. So, when she finds exactly where it was, she kind of expects to see him with a picnic mat or something more mundane. Her head tilts as she stares up. "Izuru, why are you up there?"

"Do you have a problem with it?" His voice remains clear even from up above one of the tree's thickest branches.

Chiaki rears her head up a bit further while stepping back to get a better look at him. He is pretty high up, at least four meters or so from that position. "You got yourself stuck up there on the tree, did you?" is her only logical conclusion.

Kind of suspiciously, he doesn't answer that question and opts to turn his head the other way instead. He remains eerily silent for the most part.

She once again presses him. "You did, didn't you?"

Roughly a second passes before Izuru answers, if what he said can even be called that with, "...I will not humor you with an answer." When framed right on top of one of the cherry blossom tree's branches, Izuru looks pretty out-of-place, kind of like a badly photoshopped picture. The tree's soft pink flowers are clashing so funnily with Izuru's monochromatic and dark-colored hair and suit.

Normal people would've asked their friends to try and climb down when they got stuck up on a tree. Hell, that's something Hajime would've done. Neither of them can be considered normal people and if Hajime was here, he'd be tearing his spiky antenna out if he'd see Chiaki's next move.

Though she never tried it herself before, she'd seen this done plenty of times, and so she thinks that she had a pretty good idea on how to do it. Fingers grip over the tree's bark; with a grunt, she then tries to leap above the tree's roots.

Izuru sees the display below. "That is not how you position your foot for leverage." He doesn't have to roll his eyes upon seeing another missed footing. "Nor is it positioned that way."

Chiaki pauses for a moment to glance at him, and then returns to another attempt to get off the ground.

"You should stop while you can." He reprimands while he sees her continue to struggle with getting off the ground. "Should you decide to continue, you'll end up with scrapes all over your body at best. I won't be personally responsible for your choices."

Chiaki stares up towards him, pouting so childishly and her eyes remaining undeterred. In return, Izuru narrows his. Neither would budge from their current positions. And then, probably out of childish spite, she tries to make her move once again.

If his face would allow it, he'd show exasperation by now. _'Sooner or later, she'll acknowledge it's impossible and give up. If that doesn't happen, she'll exhaust herself instead. Either way, she wouldn't be able to reach this high up.'_ He peeks down at the girl below, still barely managing to get at least half a foot off the ground. _'Not without outside help, at least.'_

Seconds pass. Minutes pass. Roughly an hour passes. Throughout that duration, the boy hears some yelps and a low crash or two. He figures it'll only be a matter of time before it's over. Maybe he should put a stop to this charade and get down soon to lessen the blow a little—

"Hey, Izuru!"

That's odd. Her voice sounds a little bit clearer in volume than it should be, almost as if she isn't several meters below him.

Against his better judgment, he turns to his right and is immediately greeted with pink eyes.

 _'Impossible. Did she seriously just get up here? Someone like her actually managed to do so without...'_ Judging by her teasing look, he came to the conclusion he must've been noticeably alarmed, even for a split second. Quickly regaining his composure, he remains seated on the branch, signs of mirthless impassiveness wearing down his usual stoic expression. "I never asked you to climb up all the way here. This is all on you."

Even from the awkward position, the one she's stuck herself in, what with her curling her body stomach-first over a tree branch like a sloth, she can't help laugh a little from his baffled remark. "At least you're not the only one who's stuck on this tree anymore." As she tries to shift herself into a more comfortable position, mainly by trying to put herself onto a sitting position while grabbing other branches for leverage, something came to mind. "Oh yeah. Weren't we supposed to watch the flowers? I didn't think we'd be climbing trees today."

"In that case, there’d be no doubt you have the best view anyone could've had of them." He dryly tells her.

A beat.

"...Were you trying to humor me just now?"

"You heard nothing." He denies.

The conversation goes from light ribbing to contemplation on how to get down from there. Chiaki doesn't know it, but Izuru already had a few ideas on how to do so with ease, but now that she's stuck there with him, he isn't sure if those options can feasibly be applied now.

While that went on, he scans the area surrounding them. No one's around. His attention returns to her and though she didn't notice it, he saw it.

A small crack is growing more and more visible on the branch she rests herself on. It must've already been there before this, but her climbing over and then using it as leverage without any prior experience may have aggravated it further.

For a split second, Izuru almost opened his mouth to try and warn her about the branch, but something seizes up in him and he isn't able to.

_Snap._

The branch gives away.

One moment, Chiaki's eyes widens,

The next thing they both knew, she drops from there.

A soft gasp escapes from her as gravity stops for a moment. She dares herself to look up while the rest of her body dangles limply.

Izuru's expression hadn't changed much, but from what she can see, his fingers lightly trembles as much as they held firm onto her wrists.

Upon a closer look, his breathing was visibly heavier than it usually was, and it wasn't from exerting himself as much as he possibly can to pull her up. He was dangerously close to falling himself as well and still, his footing remains firm.

With a barely audible grunt and gasp, one hand reached to grab onto her shoulder as he pulls her up. He sets her by his side, his chest deliriously rising and falling as he checks on her one more time.

_'She could have fallen. She could have fallen and then cracked her head open on the ground below.'_

"Thank you....thanks for catching me." Her now-quiet voice intones.

 _'And she still treated it like it wasn't a big deal, as though she wasn't inches away to a potentially fatal accident.'_ He turned to her and cautions, "You're far too reckless, are you not aware of that? If I hadn't caught you in time, you would've," He stops himself for a second, to let her know the possible aftermath had he not been as alert. "You would've died."

His fingers didn't stop shaking.

Upon noticing that, Chiaki nearly places a hand over his shoulder in an attempt to comfort him somehow, but after remembering his discomfort with touch, she refrained from doing so. She didn't want to worsen things and instead tells him, "Hey, it's okay. You caught me before I fell off, right? It was a close call, but it turned out alright in the end."

 _'It doesn't change the fact that it wouldn't have,'_ is what he might've said to her if he was in a lesser than calm state of mind. Izuru breathes in and out. Glaring at her with such intensity, he made sure the next things he said to her would leave a profound impact.

"Nanami, promise me this." His sharper tone rattles them both. "Don't you dare endanger yourself like that again."

Letting go of a shaky sigh she held onto at that moment, Chiaki can only nod and reply with the most earnest she has in turn. "I won't, I promise. I won't let something like that happen ever again."

Before the sun will set for the day, Izuru tells her, "Come on. We should get down now." After the near experience that happened only a moment ago, Chiaki had been far more careful as he helps her get down.

As the day ended, Izuru thought back on Chiaki's promise.

It's easy to believe in those words for now.

He wishes he could still believe in them.

* * *

The current month is June.

Footsteps clack all over the once spotless tiles. A man with grayed-out short hair strolled around the place without a bit of care in the world. He stops for a moment to adjust his hat's position and once he was satisfied, he went on his merry way. There's an unusual trait that he had; his eyelids remain perpetually shut, but even with that supposed handicap, he still moves with little to no trouble at all.

All the while, he cheerfully hums the main theme of a jolly red Italian plumber. When he thought about his current situation, it sounds pretty damned similar, doesn't it?

"A shame that the third laboratory went up in flames because of a faulty pipe system, or so I've heard. I would've loved to meet them too."

The old man looked neither concerned nor disturbed despite staying in the same room with barely recognizable human remains scattered all over the floor.

 _'The security of this facility was tighter than I expected it to be. It's not hard to see why. Those guys in charge don't want to have any more repeated incidents. Too bad it isn't as foolproof as they thought it was.'_ The old man muses, lightly smiling while he holds the stolen firearm on one hand, the same one that helped him single-handedly shoot the facility security guards with skill that might've made Doomguy turn red; but then, no one would be able to see if Doomguy did.

As for what happened to those who weren't gunned down? Well, he had a good friend who helped with that; the facility's personnel never knew what hit them, or more accurately in this case, never saw what ripped them to shreds.

He smirks. "Not that I'm complaining. I don't mind the extra challenge it posed."

While it's true that the rush he got from gunning these humans down gives him the same thrill as it always did, well, he'd be lying if he said that it wasn't the main reason. In a way, it was, but it certainly wasn't the only reason why he broke into this facility.

The man finds the room he was looking for and invites himself in; the door's been ripped from its hinges long before he arrived. He tips his hat and mouthed a quiet "Thanks" to his good friend.

He casually makes his way over without paying any mind to the researchers and surgeons all over the floor. His footsteps halt. It appears that the two of them might've interrupted the late researcher's activity; they've done quite a number on the young man trapped in this place.

The detained ajin, who's currently strapped on a medical chair to endure whatever sick tests scientists performed on him today, pitifully writhes and wriggles around his bindings. He mumbles out unintelligible noises as he continued to struggle, no doubt a constant reaction from the cruel experiments and exploitation, one that were forcefully inflicted onto him for a full decade before the old man arrived in this awful place.

As typical of the Japanese government's standards, he's been wrapped from head to toe in bandages; the only parts of his body that weren't covered up are his nose and a few strands of stray hair poking out from the side of his head. The numbers '002' was printed on a part of the wrappings that doubly serves as his blindfold.

He calmly walked over right in front of the young ajin and unusually for the old man, tenderly unwrapped the bandages that covered the ajin's face. The rest of them can come off later once he finds some clothes for him.

When the last strip of bandages came undone, Kouji Tanaka's eyes were wide open in disbelief; his confused ramblings remain barely coherent even without the wrappings around his face.

The old man decides it didn't matter and he starts things by setting up a friendly atmosphere. He put up a gentle smile on his face; the same one that a kindly grandfather or even good Old Nick himself to would've put on when dealing with youngsters.

The gentle, soothing tone he used was guaranteed to work on this boy stuck in an adult's body.

"It's going to be okay. I'm here to save you, Tanaka.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Because I have something important to do tomorrow, have an early update for tonight/today (depending on where you live).  
> Have some nice stuff before things go down next week.


	5. Demihuman

A peaceful Sunday afternoon settles in the residents of Mitsutoshi at that moment; to top it off, there’s the day’s surprisingly fair weather in this month of July.

"You're a little too excited, aren't you?" Hajime can't help but notice the big grin on his friend's face.

"Turnabout Trial 5 is going to be released this month." She shamelessly confirms his case. "Of course I'm excited!"

He can only laugh along with her. His friend’s enthusiasm is far too infectious. "Yeah, yeah, I remember you said you'd be the first in line for pre-orders last year."

"I'm pretty sure I was."

"You also kept mentioning that it'd be Naruhodo Ryuichi's big comeback."

"Yep, and that's why the game's going to be a big deal for Turnabout Trial fans." She then muses, "It's an unpopular opinion, but I'm actually okay with Odoroki Housuke. Sure, he's not like Naruhodo, but I did enjoy the way Odoroki's character played out. Of course, I think the reason why most don't like him is simply because he isn't Naruhodo, but that's the point."

He thinks about it. "Huh, that's a surprisingly fair assessment. Then again, I did play the games once, and I think I can see why fans may not like him, aside from replacing the series' beloved main character. It doesn't help the ending was lackluster compared to the previous entries."

"I can agree with you when it comes to the game's ending. That said, as much as I like him, it'll be great to see Naruhodo get back on the main character's role again."

The two friends come across one of the busy road's curbs, only to stop before they can cross the pedestrian's lane, mingling in with the crowd that waits there. They weren't in a hurry, so they pick up other topics, only for that topic to suddenly pause.

"Hajime, what's wrong?" Chiaki asks as she followed her friend's line of sight. It was then she understood why Hajime frowns so suddenly.

Just nearby, on the other side of the curb, a small child, a young boy only a little bit older than a toddler's age, had wandered out of his mother's sight to go and retrieve his ball. That same ball had already fallen to the middle of the street. No one is paying attention to that, as most of the people within the crowd remains occupied with whatever they've been doing. Even if they did take a moment to look at the little one darting beyond the sidewalk, they wouldn't have gotten themselves involved anyway.

Hajime huffs and mutters under his breath, "Parents these days. I can't believe she didn't even notice her son slip through."

Chiaki glances over the child, and then back to the lights. "Do you think we should do something?"

He didn't need any more prompting than that. Hajime cups two hands over his mouth to make his voice louder, not caring if he made a scene right then and there or if he somehow disturbs the crowd's peace, that is, if it could be called that. "Hey! Get away from there!" He calls out, ignoring the hushed murmurs from the crowds.

The child might not have heard him, as he still ran to the middle of the street. It did, however, caught the attention of the mother, who now yells for her child's attention. But by then, it's already too late.

At that exact moment, the lights turn red.

 _'Oh no.'_ Chiaki hears the distant engine coming from one of the vehicles. One of them, a bus, won't be able to see the child because of his small size. _'That kid's going to get run over!'_

The child is blissfully unaware of the dread that emanated from his mother and the crowds. He hurriedly grabs the ball, letting out a noise of contentment as he turns around.

At that exact moment, the rushing bus driven by an overworked man is only several meters away from crushing the child.

Hajime tries to grab onto his friend's sleeve, to try and stop her from making a stupidly impulsive decision, no matter how good her intentions were. "No, wait, Chiaki!"

He can only bite back a scream when he sees his hand slips and fails to grab her.

The child couldn't run, couldn't scream. The child can only hold onto their ball as tight as he can; his little body begins to shake uncontrollably with fear.

She jumps right there and grabs the child by short sleeves of his shirt. She pulls him aside and immediately shoves him out of the way.

The beeping from the bus is growing louder. More frantic.

Time slows down.

She sees it. The bus's bumper is centimeters away from her, centimeters away from colliding with her body. Every second feels like it’s getting slower as the bus itself grows closer and closer, and closer.

It was at that last moment, Chiaki realizes that while the child may have been saved because of her, she couldn't do anything to save herself in the end.

Time turns back to normal with a loud screech and a sickening crunch.

* * *

The child tumbles away from the truck and over near the pedestrian's lane. He doesn't get up; he can only bawl his eyes out and rub his face with his tiny hands; scrapes slowly forms over his forehead and his knees from the impact. The child won't stop weeping, not even after his distressed mother hurries towards him and picks him up in her arms.

People in the crowds did as they always do. They mutter and murmur among themselves. Some even pull their phones out to take a picture or record videos about the recent incident.

The passengers inside the bus are disoriented from the crash. A few of them step out to see what was going on.

As for when the bus driver came out, he looks around and sees the gathering crowds. He then turns towards the bottom of his bus, shuddering at the sight. He turns back to the crowd, futilely yelling out his defense as he pointed towards the crumpled remains under the vehicle. "The light was red!" He screams as if that would change anything. "You all saw that! It wasn't my fault a kid stepped in when the lights were red!"

The voices from everyone in the scene are overwhelming. It should've felt overwhelming, but Hajime couldn't hear them. He couldn't as if he’s in an entirely different place.

He remains frozen in place. His breathing grows labored and unsteady. Against his wishes, his eyes slowly dart over to the side. He sees his friend's severed arm that landed right in front of the other pedestrians.

Hajime turns away. His shell-shocked eyes lay witness on the now bloody and dirtied hairpin that is centimeters away from the crashed site.

* * *

Chiaki can't hear the commotion that raged on outside, not with the ringing present in her ears. The only thing she can truly hear was her desperate breathing and any consistent thoughts she might've had left.

 _'I don't want to die.'_ The remaining human part of her cries out.

The smell of acrid oil is mixing in with the scent of fresh blood. Her blood. It taints what little sense of smell she had left.

_Thump._

_'I don't want to die.'_

She can tell that her right arm is gone; the only thing that remained is a messy stump right above where her elbow used to be. She tries to move her crumpled body by crawling with aid from her left arm, even just a little bit.

Her body falls back on her stomach. Her eyes shut. It burns.

Her legs are too shattered to be of any use.

She no longer had even a little strength to cry out.

_Thump-thump._

_'I don't want to die.'_

Thinking against the inevitable was the only thing she can achieve at this point.

_Thump-thump._

Her breathing grows shaky, slowing down and growing heavier than the last in each second.

 _'I don't want to die.'_ Her mind continuously repeats. _'I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to-'_

The world around her soon turns dark and blurry. The voices and yells from everyone outside slowly mute down to an inaudible level. No matter how hard she holds onto the thin string of life, the void would always overwhelm it. And then, from the darkness, the bright flash that followed was blinding.

Scraps of images follow.

~.~.~

A brief remembrance of the small child's terrified face, moments before she'd managed to push them away from the incoming bus.

~.~.~

Hajime's sweet laughter was a sweet memory during the first time they've celebrated his birthday as well as the New Year's Eve together.

He made a promise of keeping the blue handheld console, a GGA he received on that day, with him for as long as he lives.

~.~.~

The first time she saw Izuru truly tensed as he just barely managed to catch her from falling off a tall tree. He quickly pulled her up with him and said something. She heard them before, but in this memory, but she couldn't hear the words that came out.

What she did know, was that he's telling her not to needlessly endanger herself.

~.~.~

In the end, she never really followed through her promise, did she?

Izuru was right. She truly was too reckless.

She wishes...she could apologize to Hajime and Izuru right now...

Her breathing stops cold.

....

......

_Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump._

Her remaining fingers, the ones that were from her good arm, lightly twitch. Those same fingers then curl.

_Thump-thump. Thump-thump._

Somehow, she feels her breath steady itself again. She forcefully opens her eyes. Her situation is still the same. She was still trapped under the bus.

_'I can't die! Not right now!'_

With a desperate cry that’s coupled with the renewed will to live and vigor, Chiaki forcefully pushes through and pulls herself out of the wreckage. She uses her left arm to grab onto the bus's door as makeshift leverage as she stands up. She doesn't notice her legs no longer crumbled beneath her.

Her heart almost feels like it’s beating faster than it usually did.

The area fills with more gasps from the nearby bystanders. The mother from earlier turns to her side as if to shield her whimpering son, her mouth opens from shock. At first, she thought it's natural that they'd freak out over her crawling out when she's supposed to be dead.

And then, one of the bystanders whispers as they stepped back, "An ajin?!"

When she first heard that, she frantically looks around the area. "Where?" She has no idea where the ajin that had the crowd so worked upon is. She can only see the same crowd of people around her.

The same people continue to stare at her with shrunken irises and agape mouths.

A sense of dread runs over her spine. _'No, don't tell me.’_ The implication slowly sinks in for her.

Chiaki glances down and couldn't contain her gasps. Black particles float around where her arm used to be; she recognizes the shape of a bone that was forming. Flesh, sinew, and skin mend themselves together on top of the new bone much like a bandage would. All the while, more black particles surround her remaining injuries, working in tandem to seal those wounds.

Only an ajin can do something like that.

 _'No. It's impossible. Both of my parents were human, I'm born as a human. I...I can't be an ajin.’_ While she frets over it in denial, an unwanted memory comes back to her.

The lecture was over a year ago, but at the moment, her old teacher's voice tauntingly reminded her loud and clear, _"It's notoriously difficult to find one unless if the ajin died first, preferably where other humans are around to witness such an event."_

 _'Then,'_ She realizes, her horror growing even more once her reformed hand had finished regenerating a new set of fingers, leaving no evidence of horrible wounds. _'Does it mean that logic applies even to ajins too? They wouldn't know either until they've died themselves!'_

"Is that an ajin?" Someone murmurs.

"I can't believe we've had one of them in our town."

"I never thought I'd see one in my lifetime."

As she hears more than a handful of the crowd's murmurs, a realization came to her: the person she used to be no longer matters to these people. It’s almost as if she’s just another reported incident to gawk at; something that’s no more than a statistic.

"I wonder who's going to step in and take the reward." One of the bystanders wonders out loud.

She has less than a second to take in those words. She turns to her side and sees a middle-aged man, the bus driver, slowly come to her direction. Her eyes turn to her only friend, silently begging him to vouch for her case.

Hajime doesn't say a word and could only stare to somewhere far off. It's like he isn't even here.

"Come on now," The bus driver has completely forgotten about defending himself. He holds his hand out as if he’s trying to coax her out, like someone would do with a stray. "I'm sure our government will take good care of you."

With no one else to rely on, the only logical way now is to run. But exactly how can she do that? There are too many people around this block; even if she did try to run, the crowd would most likely block her path and keep her from escaping.

She shakily tries to move her legs, to at least try and get as far as possible. But they couldn't. Her legs won't budge no matter how much she wants to.

The bus driver is getting nearer and nearer. A few meters are all it takes before he reaches close enough to grab her by the wrist.

Only, the bus driver suddenly stops right there. He stands still in place. It's as if every muscle in his body stopped functioning at that moment.

To the remaining bystanders, they wouldn't know the case and step themselves back in fear with shocked gasps and murmurs.

To Chiaki, pure fear fills up in her eyes as unfortunately for her, she can see what caused the bus driver to stop himself.

He didn't.

Right behind the driver is the same figure she saw last year. It hadn't changed at all from what little she'd remember. She recognizes those unnaturally long limbs. Now that she has a closer look at it, it's fair to say that the figure was like a ghost. From afar she already knew it would be tall, but now that she's within its distance, that's when she realizes how small she was compared to it. She'd barely reach up to its abdomen at most.

 ** _"Don't you dare..."_** The ghost's deep, hellish voice echoes.

 _'It can talk!?'_ She’s so taken aback by that, she remains still on the same spot.

The bus driver let out pathetic whines as the ghost's hook-like fingers hold onto his head, covering up most of his face. The sharpness of those claws would've made his face bleed any moment now if the ghost presses any harder.

As of now, it seemingly decides not to.

The driver breaks out of his shock, whimpering. "No, no. Wh-what...w-what is this?" His hand twitches in place. "What...what are you doing to me!?" He screams and frantically flails around. "Stop it, stop it, stop it! Please, stop! Stop it, I'm begging you! Let go of me!"

**_"That won't...do..."_ **

Distant sirens from a police car that’d soon arrive at this scene grow louder. As soon as one arrived at the scene, one of the policemen steps out.

Around the same time, the ghost tosses the hapless, screaming driver over that same policeman who just came out of the vehicle. The other policeman was equally as clueless and helpless as the ghost jumps over to them and flipped the police car over.

The ghost doesn't let either of them go, dragging them down and then lifting them by their ankles with no effort at all. The bus driver who helplessly lies down on the pavement keeps screaming at the sight.

The terrifying scene causes the crowd's panicking to worsen. Plenty of them no longer cared about the potential reward as they attempt to flee, even if it means trampling and stampeding over the rest of them.

In the middle of the chaos, Hajime snaps out of his stupor with a sharp gasp. He pays no mind to people's panicked screams. He frantically searches within his vicinity for a sign of where Chiaki might've gone to; he did so even if it meant running out of the area.

He didn't find a single trace of her. He didn't even have a lead on where she might've had ran to.

"Damn it." Cursing himself, he changes directions and sprints towards his house.

* * *

Chiaki huffed and panted harder than she ever did in her life. What happened back there was a close call. She was lucky no one else spotted her on the way to this mountainside. She lets herself collapse to a semi-comfortable sitting position, still trying to catch her breath.

This was the same forest Izuru had invited her with for a flower viewing less than two months ago. With nowhere else to go to, it was the only place she had in mind.

Leaning herself back on the tree, she lifts her new arm and re-examines it. The skin remained pale and smooth with no visible marks above the elbow. She pokes and presses several fingers on her arm; it still felt the same. She flexes her new fingers and they still worked as well her old ones would've had.

It's like it was never torn off at all. If it weren't for her hoodie's torn sleeve, no one would've noticed anything weird. It’s true; an ajin will indeed regenerate and get back up from anything, no matter what.

"I..." Something heavy tugs at her chest. "I'm never going home again, am I?" Tears well up at the corner of her eyes. "Why? What did I do to deserve this?"

She buries her face into her knees. Quiet sobs come out of her, letting go of the pent-up emotions she’s had since the start of this incident.

The skies darkened as time went on. Wiping the last bit of her tears away, she exhales and tries to think of something. No one exactly knows what their government does with confirmed ajin cases. There were rumors, but she wasn't one to believe in them.

_'A plan, a plan. What do I do now?'_

She nearly jumps back when she hears her phone ring; she never realized that it somehow managed to stay intact even after the crash, at least not until now. Hurriedly, she takes it out of her pocket and felt something out when she saw who the caller was. Is it hope? Fear?

Her thumb presses to accept the call. She presses the phone onto her ear.

 _"Chiaki, did anyone else see you?"_ Hajime's familiar voice rings through her phone's screen. _"Where are you now?"_

It takes her a second to breathe in before replying, "No one saw me. At least, that's what I know of." She hears him sigh in relief from the other line.

_"That's good to hear. Mind if you let me know where you are?"_

She pauses. Should she answer that? Swallowing the heaviness in her throat, she tries to answer. She wants to, but nothing comes out. What's wrong with her?

 _"Hey, you still here?"_ Hajime calls to her again. When he didn't hear anything, he then says, _"I understand if you're having a hard time trusting anyone. I'd feel the same thing if it was me in this situation. Even if you can't fully believe me, I'm on your side. But I know that saying it isn’t enough; I still have to prove it to you."_

That's all it took for any remaining doubts to slowly melt away. "Okay, I believe you. Hajime, listen carefully. I'll tell you where I am right now." She tells him the exact directions that led to her current hiding place.

Once he confirms the location, he ends the conversation. _"Alright, I got it. I'll keep this brief as much as possible, but I'll try to get you as soon as I can. Don't let anyone else see you until then."_

The phone call ends.

A semi-relaxed sigh escapes her. Of course. Hajime's always been a good friend. There's no reason to ever doubt a good guy like him. Chiaki stares at her phone one last time before letting it drop the ground. It can't be used by her again, not if the government can use it to track her location down.

She had no idea how much time had passed while she waited for him. It could've been minutes. It could've been more than an hour that passed when she catches a trace of footsteps trudging through rough terrain from below.

She hesitantly pokes the upper half of her body out from behind the tree. "Hajime?" A bit of hope seeps through her voice.

A bright light shines on her face. It was so sudden; she instinctively shields her eyes with the back of her hand.

As soon as she saw who held the flashlight, her heart drops.

The policeman grabs ahold of his radio once he saw her. "I've found the ajin. The ajin is in the mountainside's forest. I repeat, the ajin is in the mountainside's forest."

The young ajin scurries out of there as quickly as she could, even as the policeman's voice rings like he is right behind her ears. "Hey, get back here!"

No matter how far she ran, through the rows of trees and bushes, it's clear she's only been in this forest exactly once in her life. The policeman chasing her has the same disadvantage, but that was quickly negated by the fact he's been trained to do this exact thing with runaway criminals.

While she hides behind one of the larger trees to try and catch her breath some more, a feeling of dread come over her when the policeman yelling out, "I don't want to lay a hand on a kid like you, but I'll use force if I have to!" The louder volume can only mean he's closing in on her location.

The policeman's footsteps grow closer and louder; she holds her hitched breath in—

And then just like that, there's no more. _'Is he gone?'_

She waits for a second. Then another. And another. She loudly exhales in a mix of relief and unease that slowly left.

Another set of steps is heard. She isn't able to plan up another move ahead as the policeman steps in front of her view. "Either you surrender yourself easy and quietly, or you'll have to make things harder for both of us."

She almost freezes up again as he steps dangerously closer to her. She shakes her head, to try and clear her growing fear as she attempts to turn tail and run once again.

Before she could even make a foot away from there, the policeman rushes into her and immediately jabs his stun gun to her ribs.

The results were immediate.

Chiaki falls to the ground on her knees. Every muscle in her body begins to spasm once they made contact with painful, unbearable electrical burns. She _screams_.

It reverbs around their surroundings. It felt longer than it should've had, but only a few seconds passed by in the real world.

The policeman drops the stun gun. His body no longer obeyed him; not a single muscle remained operational. Just like that, the policeman abruptly stops. As in, his body itself stopped in the same, semi-crouched position he'd been in.

Chiaki shakily sits herself up, studying the paralyzed man. Her hand slowly goes over to softly grasp at her throat. _'Did I...did I really do that?'_

Mere seconds later, a baseball bat swerves to the paralyzed policeman's head, knocking him out in more ways than one. The policeman's eyes rolls back into his head and he collapses into a limp pile.

A second person has arrived just then. They nonchalantly return the bat inside the duffel bag they carried.

It's all but instinctive for her to freeze up again as she takes a look at the newcomer. She can't see their face because it was kept hidden underneath the bike helmet.

The newcomer holds their hand out. Their familiar voice is all it took to take any remaining apprehension away. "Are you okay, Chiaki?"

She shakily stands up with hope in her tone. "H...Hajime—"

He interrupts her. "We can't call each other by names right now."

She can only nod at that in reply. “Understood.”

"That policeman didn't hurt you too badly, did he?" At the shake of her head, he sighs in relief. "That's good to hear."

Hajime crouches down, back to where the policeman was. "He's not dead, is he?" He frantically checks and presses two fingers over the policeman's wrist. He quietly exhales a breath he's been holding on once he feels a steady pulse. "Thank God."

Sure, the policeman isn't dead or worse, but that doesn't mean he's going to be left lying around and so, items including the flashlight and the stun gun are taken away from him; the boy then stuffs those stolen belongings into his duffel bag. He internally debates on whether to take the handgun with him too or not, and eventually went with the former just in case.

Chiaki can't help but be morbidly reminded of looting items from defeated enemies.

As for the police radio, he chucks it out of their range as far as he can.

In addition to that, Hajime cuffs the downed policeman's wrists using the handcuffs, which is kind of ironic. They had a small relief that, if in the small chance the policeman manages to wake up sooner than expected, he wouldn't be able to call for help immediately. At best, the two would be long gone when he comes to.

As Hajime finished setting it up by leaving the policeman somewhere in the bushes, Chiaki speaks up, "I think I did something to him. Before you came here, I mean."

He then inquires, "You mean like what happened with the driver back there?" At her visible wince, he immediately retracts his statement with an apology. "Sorry, I didn't mean it that way."

With a slight shake of her head, she replies, "Not exactly. After I screamed at him, I saw him freeze up. It’s like he couldn't move his body anymore. I think I might’ve paralyzed him somehow."

"No one told us that ajins can paralyze others by screaming at them." Hajime remarks and then added, "Well, at least that's one thing we know over everyone else."

Hajime carefully leads her to where he has hidden their transport. As soon as both of them hop onto the bike, he hands her an extra helmet, which she then puts on.

Glancing around their surroundings, Chiaki asks, "What does our government do with the ajins they've found? Why do they want them in their custody in the first place?" One question, the one that dreaded her most, remains unsaid. _'What are they going to do to me?'_

Hajime sighs, admitting to her but also to himself, "I don't know either." His hands rub over the handlebar in tandem with the starting engine. "And we definitely shouldn't stick here long enough to find out."

The engine grows louder. "Come on, let's get the hell out of here."

The downed policeman stuck outside never got to hear the loud rumbles of the bike's engine that took off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Normally, the Japanese police don't use stun guns and tasers to subdue someone, but let's pretend this is a special case since the usual tactics probably won't work the same when dealing with immortal people.


	6. Red

The scene already happened more than two hours ago and yet it replayed in people's minds like a type; the distressed and screaming cries of a small child who've narrowly avoided getting hit by a speeding bus. Loud, screeching tires that came from that same bus as the driver was too late to stop it. A high school student had been hit by that exact bus and was thought to have been dead, only to rise up and regenerate a lost limb right in front of so many witnesses. They're no longer human, but an ajin.

The bus driver had attempted to approach the new ajin, but in doing so, something unthinkable happened. The driver had somehow been forcefully stopped and then launched onto one of the policemen who've arrived on the scene. The same thing happened to the rest of the police and anyone who tried to go near.

People panicked and ran themselves into a stampede, away from the dangerous, immortal, and most importantly, inhuman organism.

Everything that occurred during that timeframe around 5 PM; that time was when Japan had its latest ajin sighting. The fourth confirmed ajin in the country.

Since then, more policemen surrounded the area of the incident; they refused to let any civilians, and even in some cases, particularly nosey reporters, nearby as to not disrupt the scene. The police’s yellow tape had been wrapped all over the crash site. The crashed bus remained in there to serve as evidence for the incident. The pool of blood that came from the ajin had dried up; their old, severed arm had been taken away by several of the government authorities for scientific purposes.

An ambulance recently arrived to tend the injured; the bus driver and one of the policemen was among them. When the transport nurses picked up the driver, they looked at him with pity. The poor man continuously mumbled about something incoherent. They thought that the attack had taken a toll on his mental health.

Inside the town's police station, the police chief patiently sits on his desk. One of their rookies knocks on his door. "Come in." He permits.

The rookie pokes his head inside. "Sir, he's here."

The police chief nods and gestures the rookie to let their esteemed guest in. To help in dealing with their latest ajin, the government had sent someone who's experienced when it comes to dealing with them: the person known as Tozaki Yuu. Tozaki Yuu is a high-ranking member of the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare. Or at least, that's what they've heard.

The office's door opens once again, and there comes a sharply-dressed man in a white suit. In his hands, he holds two briefcases, one in each hand.

The chief gestures his hand towards a vacant seat. "Please take a seat."

Without any further need to be prompted to, the man takes that seat right in front of the chief's desk and sets those briefcases by his side.

The police chief holds his hand out with a polite smile. "It's great to finally see you, Mr. Tozaki—"

"It's To _s_ aki." Tosaki Yuu corrects with a hiss. His index finger pushes the bridge of his glasses up, making his lenses gleam for a moment. "If we're going to work with this together, the least you can do is get it right."

The police chief jumps back a bit, lightly stuttering, "R-Right, of course. My apologies, Mr. Tosaki." He withdraws his arm quietly. He can't blame Tosaki Yuu if he no longer wanted to shake hands for that mistake. "We do greatly appreciate you coming over as soon as you can."

"Let's get straight to the point." Tosaki changes the direction their conversation was going. "It's been more than two hours since the fourth ajin was discovered, and the police in this area still haven’t tracked that ajin down?

The chief sighs and shakes his head in shame. "We haven't. One of our men said he found the ajin, but then they went MIA around thirty minutes ago."

"And you haven't sent back up yet? Do I have to remind your grown men that this ajin is a lone teenager—" Tosaki is interrupted as the police chief suddenly stands up from his seat and slams both of his hands down onto the table.

"Everyone saw what the new ajin was capable of!" The chief suddenly shouts. "Even though I wasn't personally there, I saw the leaked footage; I saw how one of our members was thrown aside like he was nothing but a ragdoll! Teenager or not, I won't needlessly send anyone to march off to their deaths!"

As he breathes in and out, one scathing look from Tosaki reminded him of his place. The government official didn't say a word, not that he needed to.

The chief slumps back onto his seat. "I'm sorry for losing my temper. I apologize again for any inconvenience that had arisen recently. Our department has never handled such cases before, as there were no reported incidents related to ajin until now."

Tosaki mentally 'tsk'd'. _'These policemen are so incompetent. No wonder the ajin got away so easily.'_ He doesn't tell the chief that. Instead, he brings up one of the briefcases he carried and places it on top of the desk. "You can start by equipping the rest of your men with these."

As that briefcase is opened, the police chief carefully inspects the contents inside. "Tranquilizers?" He says, dumbfounded. "Can we seriously use this?"

"As you know, ajins can regenerate from anything as long as it causes their death," Tosaki explains as he pulls one out. "But,” He taps a finger on it, “One shot from a non-lethal tranquilizer will put them down as easily as any human would. Their biology wouldn't be able to register it as a death and thus, they wouldn't reset."

The chief skeptically raises a brow, uneasy at the thought. "Wouldn't that make it seem like hunting? Is it even legal?"

He nonchalantly nods. "Indeed. Pursuing ajins is very much like hunting." He curiously skims over the second question.

Tosaki continues to answer any further inquiries the police chief might've had. At the end of their brief meeting, he thinks back to his assistant and bodyguard as he left the station. Just like he told her to, Shimomura is currently investigating nearby areas around this town to try and find a lead.

When concluded with all the evidence, there's no doubt about it. The incident in this seemingly small town of Mitsutoshi is almost similar to the Nakamura incident that occurred a year before. An ajin died during their first discovery, and somehow, shortly after that, he managed to repel his attackers away using some unknown ability before proceeding to escape.

The big difference here was that unlike the Nakamura incident, there were no casualties during this case. There were people with injuries, mostly broken bones, but at least they still lived. Shimomura mentioned she'd interview some of the victims tomorrow morning if the hospital they're staying in allowed her to.

Either way, Tosaki knows that they have a variant ajin on the loose. _'A particularly dangerous one at that, if continued to be left unchecked.'_

He takes his phone out to check over the fourth ajin's picture once again; this one had been taken directly from her yearbook last year.

This time, he's not letting this one escape from him.

* * *

It isn't that late at night yet, and so, it's rather strange to see the small town's streets be so empty at this time, at least to an outsider's perspective. Izumi could understand why it'd be the case here.

The fourth confirmed ajin is still out there. No one wanted to be the next victim. The scare had been so bad, several people who were interviewed publicly declined the million yen reward if it meant being potentially maimed or worse.

Humans thought that what happened back there was something similar to an esper, but Izumi knew better. It was something far more monstrous than a simple psychic ability.

She saw the footage, alright, but unfortunately, the phone cameras were unable to capture the black ghost, the same one that was no doubt responsible for the attacks, on video. It's a big setback, especially since only other ajins can see each other's black ghosts. That said, although she couldn't see its appearance, she could tell it was there. She isn't sure if she can explain exactly how; she just can.

In a way, it's good that no civilians are out and about at this time.

_Thup._

Izumi sharply turns her back against the noise. Her body tenses in preparation. She surveys her surroundings for any sort of abnormalities.

When she doesn't hear any more noises or found anything suspicious, her stance shifts to a more relaxed one, but nevertheless, she keeps her guard up, just in case.

And then something shot up in the air.

It was so quick, it's almost a blur that blended in the dark sky, but she knows what it was. Black particles slowly form from around her back.

"Come on, Kuro!" She half-whispers, half-commands.

Her black ghost towers over her height; compared to other black ghosts, Kuro has a more bulky build. Kuro leaps into a fighting stance, its hands curl into fists. Kuro shoots out with more speed than its size would suggest, pursuing the other black ghost.

Izumi runs as well, trailing after her black ghost. From this distance, she could see the other black ghost leaping from one rooftop to another. She couldn't tell how long the chase went on, but somehow, Kuro is managing to catch up with it; she can feel Kuro close the other black ghost in by a meter away.

Just as when it looked like Kuro had managed to corner the other black ghost on top of the roof, Izumi rushes in forward, her breathing heavy; she climbed up on the ladders beforehand. She looks around in search of it, but all she saw was her own black ghost.

It sounds like a stretch, but it looked as though Kuro is just as confused as she is.

Completely ragged, Izumi breathes out. _'It's gone.'_ She places her hands on her knees as she kept catching her breath.

She must inform Tosaki about this as soon as possible.

* * *

Chilly air breezes throughout their night ride.

From his bike helmet, Hajime peers through their surroundings. From what little he can observe, there weren't as many blockades. At least, not as much compared to if the policeman he knocked out was able to warn his comrades in time.

His friend's arms wrap around his midsection once their ride sped up a bit. It wasn't too fast; Hajime has to consider that although Chiaki will definitely come back to life if the worst happened, upping the speed too much wouldn't be worth it, not if it'll give them both some injuries plus a ruined bike.

He never thought there'd be a time where he'd screw the red lights over. But then again, he never thought he'd bash a policeman's head in with a baseball bat either. Come to think of it, isn't he a criminal right now? Normally, everything that's happened in his circumstances should sound horrifying to him, but if he already committed a crime by helping an ajin escape from custody, does it even matter anymore?

A loud growl reverbs from somewhere, interrupting his thoughts. Hajime shoots up in alert, turning his head around in both directions to search for the source of that noise. As soon as he turns his head behind him, his friend awkwardly turns her head away from him. "..Sorry."

A quiet exhale leaves him. "I'll go and get us some snacks later." If his hands aren't figuratively tied to the bike's brakes, he might've used one to scratch the back of his head out of habit.

"I'm fine." She says, trying to wave things off. "You don't have to—"

"It's okay, I was going to stop by later for extra gas anyway." He reassures. "And before you say anything about no longer needing anything because you'll bring yourself back to life anyway, don't. Just don't. We both know that's a load of bull."

"I wasn't going to." She mutters in reply. It didn't stop her from thinking, _'I think you'll need it more than I do anyway.'_

They've been out in the roads for roughly around one hour and thirty minutes to two hours now, at least according to Hajime's (self-admitted) probably unreliable estimates. He isn't thinking of any specific place, just as long as it was far away from the cops and their old hometown as much as possible.

He stops their bike at a dark corner. No one should be able to stop by here, at least, not any normal person would. Before he steps out of their ride, he turns to his friend one more time. "Do you think you'll be okay here?"

It takes her at least a second before replying, "Don't worry about me. I'll be fine."

"I know that." _'It's just that I'm worried someone might see you.'_

Before he can begin to hesitate further, he starts walking away from her. As he goes closer and closer into the interval where he sees a nearby gas station from earlier, he keeps telling himself she'll be okay. He won't be gone for that long.

Hajime reaches the front of the gas station. He checks behind him and once he saw he's clear, he opens the door. He decides that he'll take the helmet off once he's inside, just to be sure.

Around five minutes later, he hurriedly steps out of the station once he paid for the stuff they need; he then stuff both of the plastic bags filled with snacks inside the duffel bag after he moved the stun gun into his pocket. As for the gas, he put it in a separate compartment within the bag.

Hajime lets out the sigh he's been holding on since a while back. It's a good thing that getting extra gas plus some snacks went as smoothly as it did.

He slips the helmet back on as he returns to his friend. "I didn't take too long, didn't I?" He asks, and then looks around the corner. "Were there any suspicious-looking people nearby?"

"Not really." She shakes her head. "And, no one saw me. I don't think I saw anyone around while you were gone."

"That's good. We should get out of here soon." He half-murmurs in urgency. Just as he was about to jump on the bike, he freezes up when he hears an unfamiliar voice bark towards their direction.

"Hey! What the hell do you think you're doing on our turf?!" Unfamiliar footsteps clack close by.

 _'No...’_ He tenses more. _‘Why now of all times?'_

Three unfamiliar men arrive from the alleyway. Their clothes are casual-looking; from what he can tell, they looked like they'd be in college. They’re a dangerously meter close to the two.

Hajime glances back at Chiaki; he holds one hand in front of her to prevent her from getting any ideas. "I'll handle this." He whispers. Even with the helmet on, he can tell she isn't thrilled about that but remained quiet about it.

He then put himself into the trio's view in an attempt to somewhat hide her away, or at least make her identity less obvious to these hostile people. He raises both of his hands as a form of submission. "We don't want any trouble. We were just about to leave."

"Like hell you're leaving just like that!" The third member growls; one hand has already been balled into a fist.

Meanwhile, the second member’s eyes’ squint; to his buddies, it would've looked like he's checking the boy out. _'Hey, wait a minute.'_ The other person's head might've been hidden by the helmet, but those torn clothes felt off to him. He checks through his phone and nearly stumbles back when he saw the news' picture. "Holy crap, that's the ajin!" The second member half-shouts and half-whispers while pointing at the girl behind.

Behind him, Chiaki visibly tenses up.

"What—No, no, no," Hajime shakes his hands around in an attempt to wave their claims off. "You guys must be mistaken—"

"Like hell we are!" The third member barks back, interrupting him. "I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure no sane human would be dumb enough to waltz around with bloodied rags for clothes!"

 _'Shit.'_ He takes a deep breath. "Okay, let's say that the person with me was the ajin. Now, did any of you saw what happened in the news?"

Those three guys shrug.

Hajime hated to use that as an example, but right now, getting these guys away was more important; he'll apologize to her later. "That driver that ran her over was sent flying when he tried to take her away. I heard he's in a hospital right now and I'm sure you guys don't want to end up like him."

"And your point is?" The leader crosses his arms.

"All I'm saying is," Through the helmet's visor, Hajime stares at the leader dead in the eye. "I'd stay as far from her as possible if I were you, because if you don’t, you'd get something worse than broken bones."

The third member growls, attempting to step further forward. The leader pushes him back with a palm. "In that case, you don't have anything to worry about. We won't provoke the ajin."

"You won't?" He asks incredulously yet didn't shift his stance. He doesn't have a good feeling about this.

The leader laughs. "Of course not, we're not stupid like that guy in the video was. Instead, how about this? If you hand the ajin over nice and quietly, we'll agree to split the reward with you." The leader proposes, holding his hand out. "What do you say?"

"Come on, it's a million yen reward! We're going to be filthy stinkin' rich with that!" The second member eagerly joins in.

He lowers his head, growing oddly silent. He then steps forward, one hand remaining inside one pocket.

 _'Hajime?'_ Chiaki turns her head towards the group, and then back to him. _'What are you planning?'_

"When you put it that way..." Hajime raises his head, meeting the leader from eye to eye. He unflinchingly steps forward.

The leader smiles very wide; it feels like he’s smiling a little too wide for comfort. "Yes, that's what I'm talking about! I knew a smart guy like you would come around." The rest of his circle cheers as well. His delighted expression suddenly changes to that of shock and pain. The leader screams, coughing out saliva.

Too quickly for anyone to have noticed, Hajime has taken the stun gun out of his pocket and jabbed it onto the leader's side a moment ago.

The other two are quick to strike back. While the leader falls and clutches onto his side in pain, the two didn’t leave Hajime an opening to do the same towards them. He’s quickly outnumbered by the other two, older men.

Just before they forced him onto the ground with a foot on his back, he barely manages to scream out, “Run!”

She isn’t able to, not with the hesitation of leaving him behind went over her. This gave an ample opportunity for the second member to speed over and slug her in the head, dazing her as well as knocking her helmet off in the process.

She lands onto the ground with a loud thud.

"I knew it! It really is the ajin they showed all over the news!” The second member exclaims once he took her facial features in, swiftly grabbing ahold of her shoulders. Once he felt some resistance, he takes advantage of her shorter height and slams her down head-first onto the ground.

Hajime screams at them. The third member stops him from doing anymore; keeping him pinned on the ground. 

“Hah! Who would’ve thought we’d get so lucky tonight, boys?” The leader joins in, taking over and grabbing her by the wrists.

Chiaki weakly turns her head towards him. "He's human. He has nothing to do with this." A large scrape is starting to form over her forehead. "I'm the one you want, right? Just let him go."

"No..." The third member stomps harder onto Hajime’s back, making him grunt in pain. "Don't..."

The leader keeps quiet as if to wait for something. Waiting if he’d be violently thrown across the street like what happened to the previous victims. When nothing of the sort happened, he laughs. “Would you look at that? Guess I’m not the one who’ll worry about broken bones now.”

The third member laughs too. "I can't believe the ajin gave up so easily. And this guy seriously thought we'd turn up at the hospital like that driver did." He adds as he looked down on Hajime, who glares at him in return. "The cops must suck so much at their jobs if they can't catch one the first time around."

"What do you think? Think we should let the guy go?" The leader asks his cronies. "The cops only wanted the ajin, right?"

"I don't know." The second member shrugs. "Won't someone who helped an ajin run off end up being wanted by the cops anyway? Hell, maybe they'll give us an even bigger reward for handing over the ajin along with this guy."

"Come to think of it," The third member digs his foot even deeper. "I'm still pissed at him for trying to taser us. Like hell I'm letting him go."

The leader shrugs, his malicious smile is aimed towards the ajin. “You heard them. If you wanted your friend safe from this, then maybe you shouldn't have gotten him involved in the first place." The leader wastes no time as he pushes her forward. He straddles over her back, pinning her down further. "You really are a monster," One hand grabs on the back of her neck. "For taking a human down with you."

Another hand joins in, this time grabbing on the other side of her neck. Both hands constrict around her throat and start to squeeze as hard as they can.

She gasps. Her vision is starting to cloud as she coughs. She futilely struggles against his chokehold.

"Now let's see if ajins really can't die," The leader's hands crush around her neck even tighter. "No matter what you do to them."

As his grip over her throat tightens, her remaining survival instinct kicks in as she pathetically tries to pry his hands off with her own. Her body thrashes and twists around, but the older boy’s weight kept her pinned in place.

From her position, she saw the other two men land several more kicks to Hajime in the gut. She hears him grunt in pain as a punch is sent straight to his jaw.

Familiar darkness is starting to settle in once again.

Black wasn't the only color that clouded her eyesight this time; drops of crimson just so happened to get sprinkled on top of it as well. Something within her entertained a dark thought she normally would never have.

Her eyes roll to the back of her head. Her body goes limp.

The leader gets off of her, curiously inspecting over her body to look for any signs of life. When he didn’t find any, he frowns. “Looks like it isn’t an instant thing like I thought it would be.”

Moments pass, the ajin’s fingers twitch. None of the surrounding humans can see the black particles surrounded her body once again. The leader is so excited about seeing an ajin come back to life before his eyes, he steps forward to try and test it again.

Just as he did, he freezes on his tracks. A black mass forms over the ajin’s back. He cautiously steps back, which didn’t go unnoticed by his peers.

The black mass then solidifies into a humanoid shape, one that towered over everyone present. "W…W-What the hell is that thing?!"

When Chiaki came to again, she didn’t hear the humans’ outburst. As soon as she notices she was no longer held in place, she groggily sits herself up, only for her to react similarly when she saw the figure.

It's the ghost.

The ghost opens its maw, revealing uncannily-human teeth on pinkish-red gums. It rears its head up and it **_screams._**

The ghost wastes no time, grabbing the leader by his shirt and proceeds to toss him aside. The other two members let out terrified shrieks as they run, even if it means abandoning their leader to this abomination.

They never manage to get far when the ghost tackles them both. Its high-pitched screams manage to overshadow their own.

While the hopefully not-quite literal slaughter-fest goes on, Chiaki feels herself get pulled up as someone grabs ahold of her wrist. “Come on.”

After he retakes and puts the helmet back on her, Hajime escorts her back to their ride. She never saw him frantically try to start the bike’s engine before. Once it did, Hajime slams onto the pedestal harder than he ever did before. She places her hands over his waist.

The ghost didn’t pay any mind to them. Instead, it focuses on the three humans it cornered, baring its teeth towards them.

Chiaki tries her best to block out the humans’ terrified, pained screams. It continues to echo, ringing in her ears throughout the rest of the night’s ride.

She couldn’t slow her shaky breathing down.

It happened again.

The worst part is, a part of her would gladly say they deserved it.

* * *

The policeman wakes up with a start. Beads of sweat rolled down his neck. He groans; the dull throbbing from the back of his head hasn't gone away yet.

How long has time passed? Where did the ajin go?

He racks his brain; all he remembered was that he almost got the ajin, and then all of a sudden, he heard the ajin scream. The next thing he knew, he could no longer move his body. Then a blackout followed.

Upon recalling those bits of information, he quickly realizes he’s still in the forest.

As soon as he tries moving his limbs, that's when he noticed his hands are cuffed behind his back. He curses, forcing himself to stand up with little success; at most, he could at least put himself to a somewhat comfortable sitting position.

 _'Backup should've been here by now.'_ He wonders what was taking them so long.

_Rustle._

A chill is felt over his spine. "Who's there?!"

Perhaps it would've ended better if he kept his mouth shut. More rustling come from the bushes. From afar, he sees the figure had a recognizable human shape. Once it got closer, however, he sees it clearly wasn't the case.

The policeman's irises shrink to pint-sized dots.

The black ghost turns its head south to look on him; it has no eyes of any sort and it two serrated lines served as its mouth. Its sharp smile appears to be anything but nice.

It raises a free hand to strike; the other hand remains preoccupied in holding something in it. For a split second, the policeman lays his eyes on the thing's long talons for fingers.

No one heard the policeman's piercing screams. No one but his attacker, that is.

* * *

Away from human eyes, Tanaka never cackled so much in his life. At least, not until that moment came.

Nothing felt more cathartic than that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: First of all, I'd like to apologize for the chapter delay. I had some things going on (plus a power interruption) that happened, so I wasn't able to pump this out on the day I intended.


	7. Report

Kei calmly sips from his cup of tea. He’s been seeing the exact same news that’s been playing in every station nonstop. It’s been there since last night. He’s thinking to himself it’s starting to get kind of annoying now, actually.

The news anchor in the TV screen then continues, "—According to a new and yet, a rather dubious account from recent witnesses, Nanami Chiaki, the fourth official ajin in our country remains on the run along with another person. At this time, we have yet to confirm whether that person was a willing accomplice or a potential hostage—"

“Kei,” His mother’s sharp voice cuts in as she glares at the screen. “Turn that TV off right now.”

The boy stands up with a resigned, “Alright, I got it.” as his immediate reply. He immediately presses a finger over the TV’s button, and as quickly as it should, it flashes off.

Kei proceeds to finish the rest of his drink when he sees his mother shakes her head.

“Media these days, they always had to make such a big fuss out of this.” She scoffs. “It’s just like Tanaka all over again.”

 _‘Ajin sightings are already rare enough, so I guess it’s only natural these people would try to milk it for all its worth.’_ He thinks to himself. He decides not to comment any further about that topic.

He stands from his seat at the dining area, heading over to the kitchen’s sink and places his empty cup in it.

He checked over the time on the wall clock. He figures he already has everything he might need today and so, there’s only one thing left for him to do. Kei grabs ahold his bag and he heads to the front door. “I’ll be off now.”

Aside from a brief reply of acknowledgement and a reminder or two, his mother doesn’t say anything else in return. It’s always been that way in here, and that was alright with him. This ordinary life he’s always had is something he appreciated, especially at a time like this.

As Kei made his way to his school, he can’t help but think back to the report he saw last night as well as the interviews in that morning, or at least the parts that he saw before his mother came in.

He can understand why some people would be reacting that way in a scene like that; it's hard to blame them for getting scared so shitless by something that can’t be seen. It doesn’t help that even though he can’t see whatever is responsible for attacking those people onscreen, he can definitely feel that there’s something that lingered right there.

What about his thoughts about it? Well, he could care any less about it. It’s not like he’s personally involved in it anyway. As long as he never meets face-to-face with the fourth ajin, he figures he’d remain in his normal routines.

He knows that it’d be impossible for them to meet anyway; the fourth ajin is in another town. That town, Mitsutoshi if he’s remembering correctly, isn’t anywhere close to his hometown.

He puts himself to a stop right before the pedestrian’s lane. The traffic light is bright red for pedestrians. He briefly remembers, didn’t the fourth ajin get exposed because of a road accident? And right in front of so many people too.

Kei sucks in a sigh as a sizable crowd of people begins to form behind him. _‘I can't imagine what it's like to have a whole country go after you.’_ He inwardly shakes his head at that notion. _’It must really suck to be her right now.’_

* * *

In another town, people continue to remain at unease.

To be more specific, things are rather crazy on a certain high school establishment. For everyone who’s staying, whether they are a student or one of the staff members, it wasn’t that hard to see why; the fourth national ajin used to be one of that school’s students right before it happened: the incident that everyone in the country would’ve known by now.

It’s only expected that it’d be one of the places that’s flooded by the media for potential information as well as scoops regarding the fourth ajin. In addition to that, it wasn’t just one or two news stations that got in there, but at least half a dozen or more crowd themselves in there.

Everything that has to do with those news stations went so far, the staff is threatening to ban those news reporters off their property if they don’t calm themselves down. If that wasn’t enough, then there are also the added issues of personal privacy to boot.

Still, for some people, mostly the students who thought it’d give them at least fifteen minutes of fame didn’t mind giving an interview or more to those reporters.

Speaking of, a couple of them, each one from a different station than the other, had started with the classmates and/or possible associates first. They’re currently live on air while they interview the eager students.

“As one of her former classmates, did you believe there were any signs that Nanami didn’t seem human to you?” One of the news reporters asks a lone student, one member among the three who volunteer.

Even better, these three students mentioned that they were classmates with the fourth ajin for almost two years prior to giving their consent to be interviewed.

"Well, when you look at it, I'm surprised no one's really noticed. I mean, Nanami was always kind of a loner. I don’t think ever really talked with anyone aside from Hinata. She just had small talks with everyone else if she needed something.” The former classmate proceeds to shrug his shoulders. “When you think about it that way, I guess it only made sense she wasn't human in the first place."

The second guy shrugs as well while shaking his head. He gives his own answer to that same question. “I never saw her express herself that much. I’ll admit that it made her kind of creepy, do you get what I’m saying?”

“To be honest,” The third guy in their friend group scowls. “I’ve always seen it coming. I wasn’t surprised at all when that report came in. It’s always the quiet loners that turn out to be freaks in the end.” He crosses his arms at the end of his part.

The same news reporter decides to repeat that same question to a couple of more students and even a few teachers. Each and every one of them feels like they just gave the same answers but rearranged in all sorts of different words.

One respondent has stand out in particular. This one is another student, only this time, she’s from another class.

“I never really talked with her before, but after I saw the news and found out about it, I’m so glad I never did. “ She adds with a rather audible gulp. Her knees tremble while her thumbs twiddle with each other. “I felt so bad for the people who got hurt because of her. I don’t know what I’d do if I come face-to-face with something like that.”

Meanwhile, another reporter, who from the same station as the other one, asks a different group of students, “Are there any other details you’d like to add, aside from the ones we’ve already heard about?”

"I don't know if it's true or not,” One of their members shrugs her shoulders. “But I heard she was invited to become an Ultimate student."

That piques the news reporter’s attention. "Oh, that sounds interesting. Do you know what her potential Ultimate title would’ve been?”

The same girl shakes her head. “No, I don’t think I’ve heard the exact details other than that.”

It’s a big shame that kind of information wasn’t disclosed, the reporter thought to themselves. Still, the reporter remains persistent through and then follows it up with, “Can you tell me then, if that was the case, then why was she still attending Masafumi High at the time before the incident?"

The follow-up question proceeds to make the group pause. They murmur among each other. It’s a good question; if it’s true, then why was she still attending a public school when she could’ve been in Hope’s Peak’s pristine halls?

Once they are done discussing among themselves, they turn their attention back to the reporter. It didn’t take that long for them to reach a conclusion.

"From what the rumors say, she turned it down.” Another member pipes in as she grumbles under her breath. “Doesn't that sound crazy? Really, it’s like an invitation from the country's best and most prestigious school, and someone like her turns it down? No sane person would ever do that!"

“Hmm, you make a good point there.” The news reporter nods in agreement. “It does sound absurd. I don’t see any normal person who’d reasonably turn such a wonderful offer down.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Another member of the friend group nods with her arms crossed. “I mean come on, once you graduate from there; you’re pretty much set for life!”

A different student, someone who just happens to be passing by, pipes in while ignoring everyone’s annoyed stares, "If I received that invitation, then I'd gladly accept it, no questions asked! I'd be there at Hope's Peak Academy by now instead of being stuck on this ordinary school."

“Can you imagine the kind of scandal Hope’s Peak Academy would’ve had if one of their students turned out to be an ajin?” She snickers. “That’ll be insane.”

“Well then, it’s a good thing that she turned them down, then. Hope’s Peak Academy wouldn’t waste their resources on something that’s not even human in the first place.” The first member who spoke up adds.

The rest of her friends nod and hum in agreement.

The information those news reporters received were mostly the same without many details that helped to add to the case, but it wasn’t all for naught. They still made some good views with all the juicy info they’ve acquired.

It’s just like the time with the second national ajin back then. There was so much publicity and so many views. It was a great time for everyone involved.

That part is admittedly debatable, but still. It’s still a great time for everyone back then as far as the news stations were concerned.

* * *

“This way, please.” One of the nurses tells Izumi, escorting her through this hospital’s halls. The nurse then leads her inside the elevator. While they both wait patiently inside, Izumi is left to her thoughts as she mentally prepares herself.

 _‘The hospital staff ended up allowing me to conduct a short interview with the bus driver.’_ She reminds herself. _‘Thirty minutes should be enough to gather any crucial information.’_

Speaking of crucial information, she had already informed Tosaki about the stray black ghost she saw last night. He told her to remain on the lookout for it; it could either be an entirely new ajin, or one of the ones that managed to escape government custody. No one in the public knew about the latter information at the moment. They hope it’d stay that way.

“We’re here.” The nurse’s soft voice immediately snaps Izumi out of her brief trance. The two step out of the elevator’s door, and soon, the nurse leads her to where the bus driver is being housed in.

The nurse knocks and she opens the door. Shortly after that, Izumi turns to the nurse and bows her head in quiet thanks. They both politely step inside the patient’s room. Her eyes went over to the victim and her heart sinks over the sight.

The bus driver doesn’t have too many injuries aside from being thrown off, but the way he looked up at the ceiling was very off-putting. Several strips of dressing are wrapped on his forehead and his left arm. In addition to that, one of his bandaged legs had to be raised up; from what she heard about, the force from getting thrown off is enough to fracture his leg bone.

“Good morning. There’s a visitor who’d like to speak with you.” The nurse bows her head in greeting to the patient before she turns and leaves the room.

The door clicks as it closes.

Izumi respectfully bows her head as well. “Good morning, sir.” She steadily approaches him and ponders on whether she should take a seat or simply remain standing right in front of him; she opts to go with the former option and makes herself comfortable by his side. “If it isn’t too much trouble for you, I would like to talk to you regarding the incident with the fourth ajin.”

She patiently waits for his reply. The bus driver doesn’t say anything. He didn’t even seem to acknowledge her presence in his room. He absentmindedly stares into the room’s plain wall. His mouth remains perpetually shut.

Seeing that he might not start talking on his own any time soon, Izumi begins, “Please, tell me anything you can recall a night ago. Any information you can provide will be helpful in this case, no matter how small you think it is to be."

She waits once more. It felt like a few minutes pass by until she hears him faintly mumble something. “Yes?” She didn’t exactly hear what he said, since it was rather soft.

“It...” He mutters, this time a bit more clearly.” It...It looked like a human, but it looked...wrong." The bus driver mumbles to himself, “So…so wrong…”

 _‘He saw it? That’s impossible. Humans shouldn’t be able to see them. Even Tosaki was unable to see Kuro most of the time.’_ Izumi glances back on the bedridden man. _‘Unless if…’_ Before she can say something she’d regret, she keeps herself quiet, to let the man finish what he was saying.

As she expected, he continues after a brief pause. "Too tall...arms and legs were t…t-too long. There's only...only a black spot where its face should be...A living shadow…”

"Um, sir, can you tell me how tall it was?" She asks.

He stops once again. His eyes shut so tightly. He sucks in a deep breath. One deep breath turned into two more, and soon Izumi began to worry if she’d said too much. It didn’t help when the man is starting to visibly shake in his bed.

“No, wait,” She retracts her last statement so quickly, to the point she might as well be rambling right in front of him. “I’m so sorry. It’s okay if you don’t want to answer that question—”

The man opens his eyes once again and stops her from saying anything more with, "I think...I…I barely reached up to its chest—"

She shakes her head. “Please, you don’t have to force yourself to say anymore— “

The man heaves. His chest starts to abnormally rise up and down. "...Sharp claws, almost like hooks…covered most of my face...c-couldn't see much...it c-could've ripped...me apart..." His arm, the one that’s attached to an IV, is shivering. “It…didn’t.” He swallows. “That’s…all…I remember.”

Izumi lowers her head. The tension remains thick in the air even though the man had already finished his story. “I see. Thank you very much for saying what you can.”

The man didn’t say a word when she got herself up and left.

“Um, Ms. Shimomura?” The same nurse who escorted her had been staying outside their room, asks with a concerned look, and then adds, “You still have a couple of minutes more.”

Izumi shakes her head as she replies, “No, it’s okay. I’ve got all the details I needed for the case.” She bows her head. “Thank you for your cooperation. It’s truly appreciated.”

The nurse once again offered to escort her outside, but she respectfully declines that offer. While Izumi passes by the hospital’s halls, she reviews the information she managed to gather.

First, the bus driver claimed that he saw the entity responsible for attacking everyone at the incident. What’s startling about that fact was that he was able to describe with more details than she’d expected and as far as she knew, the bus driver was human. If she were to report this to Tosaki, he would have to put this man on watch.

Second, the bus driver’s account had only served to reaffirm her suspicions ever since she saw the footage on its first broadcast.

 _'So it is true.’_ Izumi mentally re-assesses the information she successfully acquired. _‘What the driver saw back there was a black ghost. If my assumptions are correct, then it wasn’t just any black ghost either, but Nanami’s. That has to be the reason why it attacked the bus driver and the policemen back at the incident. It was trying to protect her.'_ She grasps her chin in heavy thought. _'And judging by the alleged height he described, it's an immensely powerful one too.'_

From the sound of it, it’s as if Chiaki barely had any control over it as well. Black ghosts are attuned to their ajin’s emotions and from what she observed in the new footage, Chiaki had been panicking as anyone in her shoes would. It won’t be a stretch to consider that the young ajin might’ve been in shock as well, due to the experience of dying for the first time and for being exposed in front of so many witnesses.

Even in its berserk state, it truly was a miracle that not a single human died during the black ghost’s rampage that day. Most of the time, a black ghost’s first instinct to protect its ajin was to eliminate any and all threats, even if it means killing them. They don’t have the same moral compass that binds them, unlike their users.

It’s wishful thinking, especially for someone like her, but Izumi wants to hope that any similar incidents, the ones that will inevitably happen in the near future, won't result in a drastic amount of casualties.

They can’t have another repeat of the Nakamura Incident.

They simply can’t.

* * *

The warehouse they have to stay in is a bit dusty, but as far as temporary home bases do, it also isn’t so bad. It’s not like they could stay in a hotel anyway, not when he had someone famous with him.

"Fourth, huh?" Satou absently remarks. "I've heard that's a rather unfortunate number around here." He toys around with the pistol he had in hand.

Tanaka, his current roommate in this humble abode, grimaces as soon as he hears that. "To some people, it is much worse than that."

Satou giggles, shaking his head. “Some people’s superstitions sound so funny when you put it that way. For example, to some other cultures, it’s the number thirteen that signals bad luck.”

“That’s the first time I’ve heard of that, actually.” He exclaims.

“Oh,” Satou begins as he changes the topic without warning. “And speaking of which, I can’t help but notice something about our new ajin.”

That question makes Tanaka perk up in interest. “What is it?”

The old man stops himself for dramatic effect and then says, “Don’t you think it’s funny that Nanami was the same age as you back when you were first discovered?”

Tanaka pitifully groans. “You didn’t have to point that out.” He covers his face with both hands.

“Sorry, sorry. It’s just funny when you think about it.” Even though he’s apologizing, it sounds way too light-hearted to be taken seriously.

Tanaka wants to change the subject before it derailed into unpleasant memories. He thinks back about last night, and suddenly, an important discovery made its way back to his mind. He scrambles around his pockets in search of it.

“Tanaka,” Satou asks him with a raised brow, “Did you lose something?”

“Almost got it. There we go.” Satisfied he got it, Tanaka pulls a gadget out of his pants’ pocket and presented the item to him. “I almost forgot about this, but my IBM found something last night. I think you should have a look at it.”

Satou takes it from his comrade’s hands. “Hm, a phone?” He tilts it over. “I wonder whose phone is it.”

“I think it was left behind in a forest.” Tanaka shrugs his shoulders. “I haven’t checked it out yet. I thought it’d be better if you took a look at it first.”

“Well, only one way to find out, then.” Shrugging too, he opts to turn it on. There are no lock screens of any sort, which makes accessing the device even easier for him. He can’t help but feel really giddy when he checks over the old emails, now having figured out whose phone it was. "Oh my, your IBM found her phone? That's so lucky!" Satou laughs. “I knew I could count on you, Tanaka!”

Tanaka bashfully places a hand over the side of his head. He’s still getting used to these kinds of praises. “It was nothing, really.”

“But,” Satou points out, immediately putting a stop to Tanaka’s sudden bashfulness. “I wished that you told me about this sooner. Would you care to remember that in the future?”

Tanaka couldn’t argue any further; he can only nod in reply. “Yeah, I will.” He keeps one particular thought to himself, figuring it’d be unnecessary to their conversation. _‘I wanted to show it to you last night, but you were so busy having a video game marathon. You didn’t want me to disturb you.’_

Satou skims over the phone’s contact list, that is, if it can even be called either of that. The list is pretty small; there are only three people he could make out, and two of them are the phone owner’s parents. He’s starting to see where Chiaki’s former classmates are coming from during their interviews.

Obviously, the parents are out of the picture. They’re still around, being aggressively interviewed by the press, and if he remembers correctly, the mother publicly disowned her own daughter after the incident was broadcasted all over the country. On the other hand, the father hasn’t made any comments whatsoever.

Naturally, that leaves just one, obvious choice for them.

Checking over the last contact number once again, Satou comments, “From what information I’ve gathered so far this morning, this ‘Hinata Hajime’ guy was one of her closest friends, if not the only friend she has.” He checks over the emails and then muses, “Oh, but this ‘Izuru’ person on her emails sounds like an interesting guy too. It’s too bad she didn’t have his number.”

“Well, what do you think we should do now, Mr. Satou?” Tanaka questions.

He doesn’t answer Tanaka’s question, or at least, doesn’t give him a concrete answer. Instead, he fires back with another question. “Don’t you think it’s odd that Hinata didn’t show up during the interviews segment, even though he knew her for a while and they even attended the same high school?”

“Wait, he didn’t? I didn’t even notice until you pointed that out.” Tanaka then wonders, “What exactly are you getting from that?”

“I think you can see where I’m going with this.” When Tanaka didn’t reply to that, Satou checks over the other phone, and then fishes his phone out of his pocket. He taps on its screen a few times. “Ah, there we go.” Satou presents his phone to Tanaka; displayed right on its screen was a new contact number.

Tanaka leans in closer. "Oh. Does that mean we'll find them soon?" He asks oh-so hopefully as soon as he sees who it was.

The older of the two tilts his head in confusion. “Huh, what? No, not at all, Tanaka. We won't find them."

“But, Mr. Satou, don’t you have his number?” Tanaka asks incredulously. “Do you mean that information isn’t enough for us? Should I have searched for more?”

Satou chuckles at his comrade's surprised look. "Ah, my bad, I should've made myself clearer to you. Forgive me for that." The old man turns to his comrade, a viper's smile adorning his lips.

"We won't find them," He opens one eyelid, revealing a single red eye. "Because they'll be the ones who'll find us first."


	8. Dial

They had no idea how much time has passed. It felt like a moment ago, they were running off from a group of thugs that saw her, and the next thing they knew, the sun had already risen up. The highways were too risky to be considered, which is why Hajime opted to take a detour around the mountain ranges.

When she thought about it, Chiaki probably had an idea about what it’s like to lose track of time before. But then again, losing the sense of time was the least of their problems. At the moment, there’s a bigger, more troublesome problem trailing next to them. Hajime mentally ‘tsk’ed’ at what he sees on one of the side mirrors, or rather, who.

Another bike is right behind them.

Who they were and how they ended up following them to this point didn’t matter at the moment. What matters right now was this: it’s clear that the other motorcyclist immediately recognized one of them. It’s impossible not to, not with the bloody clothes.

"Do you remember the policeman from last night?" At her affirmation, he tightens his hold against the bike’s grip. "I know that it sounds unreasonable for me to ask this, but, I want you to do what you’ve done back then, right here and right now."

"Wha—...“ She sputters before she shakes her head and says, “You can't be serious. What if he ends up falling off and gets hurt, or worse?"

The other motorcyclist is starting to get closer at an increasingly dangerous speed. Their motor’s buzzing grows louder by each minute.

"I know that,” He admits, “But he’d sooner run us over first if it means getting his hands on you, and I’m not going to give him a chance to do that. As your friend, is it alright if I ask you to trust me on this?”

As much as she hated to do this, her friend does have a point; even if she refuses to hurt that other person, it doesn’t mean they’d be inclined to do the same. With a short nod, she replies, "Okay. I’ll do it."

Her eyes close in concentration; aside from the fluke with that policeman, she still has no idea exactly how she was able to do that. She can feel the paralysis scream that is starting to build up in her throat.

Just as she’s about to let her voice out, a grim thought came out so suddenly to her mind, causing her to hesitate at the last second. _‘Wait. If my voice can paralyze others, won’t that mean Hajime will be_ — _’_

The other bike swerves directly into them.

Hajime yells, both in shock and in reflex. Their bike starts to slip to the side, and before either of them knew it, they’re about to get sent flying off of the mountain rails.

As for the other motorcyclist, his hands hold firmly on the grip; he’s in the middle of preparing himself for a hard brake when-

It all happened too fast. Without even realizing it, she ends up shouting out, "N- _No!_ "

The effects are immediate. The motorcyclist loudly gasps from his helmet. Although they’re hidden by his choice of headwear, his eyes are so wide; it would’ve looked like he met with Death himself. An internal battle for control goes off in his mind, and yet, he couldn’t step on the brakes. Every last muscle in his body instantly freezes up on the spot.

Their bike isn’t anywhere to be seen, not from this view. Hajime's instincts scream at him, to do something, anything to slow down his fall. He keeps trying, and trying, and yet, _'I...I can't move!'_ His face has frozen into a look of absolute terror.

He can't see where his friend is, but he feels a pair of hands wrap around his waist. Almost instantly, he feels his body's muscles are starting to function once again. At that exact moment, he sharply gasps, eyes going wider and now fully realizing exactly what Chiaki is trying to do.

His friend curls her body behind his.

They hit the ground with a heavy thud.

Hajime is the first one who came back to the world. He blearily opens his eyes. His chest rapidly rises up and down. His heart is racing faster than he ever thought it would ever be capable of.

Once he’s able to comprehend what just happened, he gets himself up with a gasp. His arms and legs ached a bit, but other than that, there weren’t any injuries on him.

A pained groan comes from behind him.

He turns back, and with a look of horror on his face, wastes no time crouching down to check on the person who broke his fall. “Chiaki, are you okay?” He did his best to calm down; panicking and frantically checking her over won’t do any good to either of them.

"I...I can't feel my back." She grunts, attempting to get up somehow with little success. "No, wait, I don't think I can feel my arms or legs either."

Fearing for the worst, he instinctively rummages through his, thankfully, still-intact duffel bag. “Does it hurt? Is there anything you need?”

Instead of answering his question, she looks around their surroundings, or at least, tries to, despite her current limitations. “What happened to him?”

A sharp pang got through him as soon as he hears her mention that. She hasn’t forgotten about the other person who was with them moments ago. He holds a hand out. “Wait here.” He gets up, and from a meter away, he sees the motorcyclist.

Or rather, the body that was left behind.

Even from this view, he can see that the motorcyclist's neck had bent at a fatally odd angle; if he’s guessing correctly, the ajin’s voice must’ve paralyzed him and made him lose control over his bike.

In different circumstances, Hajime might've winced in sympathy. In this case, this was the guy who just tried to ram them off the mountainside not too long ago, and he would've turned Chiaki over to the government authorities if it worked for him, and so, Hajime won't give him a shred of his sympathy; instead, he turns away from the still-fresh corpse with a disgusted scowl.

 _'Serves him right.'_ He huffs, shaking his head at the sight.

When he turned back to check over her, he sees a look of immense guilt flashing over Chiaki’s face.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?”

Hajime didn’t know what would be the right thing to say in this situation. Yeah, it’s true that the guy did something horrible, but he was the one who talked her into doing this. And now, she’s going to take full responsibility for it without letting him share the blame.

Despite his hesitation, he ends up replying with, “He is. But you don’t have to worry about him. Right now, I have to get you treated as soon as possible.”

Before he can crouch down to her level once again, he hears her call out,

“Wait. You don’t have to do that.”

He looks at her with a raised brow. “Why not? You’re hurt, aren’t you?”

She stops him with, “My back’s broken. I don’t think there’s anything that can be done for that.” Looking away from him, she says with shame in her tone, “Not unless if I reset.”

“Reset?” He ponders before his eyes widen in realization. “You don’t seriously mean—” He rapidly shakes his head. “I can’t do that!”

“Hajime, don’t worry about. I’m going to be fine afterward. Another death is going to be nothing compared to this.” Chiaki insists. She even forces herself to smile despite it all, and it’s to keep him from worrying even further for her sake.

And yet, he knows the truth. He can see her lightly tremble at the thought of experiencing something so horribly painful once again.

With a sigh, he nods. “Okay. I’ll try to make it as painless as possible.” He searches around, to look for something that’d make things easier for her. For obvious reasons, he wouldn’t try to strangle her or do anything brutal with his own hands; it’d take too long and only cause them both unnecessary pains.

He checks over again, and when his eyes went over the corpse, a glint catches his eye. The late motorcyclist’s knife slipped out of their pocket; it must’ve done so earlier from the crash. He comes over there and shakily picks it up.

 _‘I can’t believe I’m going to do this.’_ He breathes in, and then breathes out to calm his nerves down. He walks back to where Chiaki is waiting for him. He crouches down right next to her.

They both glance into each other. Her innocent eyes stares back into his hesitant ones, before she closes them with a nod, giving him the okay to do it.

He forces himself to tighten his loosening grip over the knife. Even though it’s such a scary thought, he can’t believe that she is still willing to go through death once more.

He glances at the knife, and then back to her. Either he has to kill her to kick start her regeneration, without any guarantee that she won’t suffer in the process, or he doesn’t, and he lets her suffer from a broken spine until another death inevitably comes to her. Both choices weren’t the best ones, but…

He gulps, looking away as he reluctantly slashes through the soft flesh of his friend's throat. 

Despite her reassurances that she’d be fine, he feels himself get sick to his stomach when he hears wet choking and gurgling as his friend bleeds out. He had no idea how long it lasted; it could’ve been seconds, it could’ve been minutes.

Those awful, dying wheezes fade to a complete stop afterward. A part of him wants to check up on her, to see if she’s already back, but something stopped him from doing so.

Shortly after that, he hears something else come up. He resists the urge to shudder, to keep himself from vividly imagining what is happening close to him.

Hajime will never get used to the sounds of broken bones mending themselves back into place.

* * *

Although they’ve mostly got out of there without too much harm, the same can’t be said for their bike. Their ride has taken quite a beating from that crash; they’ve had no choice but to take the recently deceased motorcyclist’s bike. It wasn’t in the best condition either, but compared to what happened to theirs, that other bike at least remained functional somehow.

Shortly after that fiasco was done and over with, they had to make do with an abandoned cabin in the woods. Figuring it was safe for now, he takes the helmet off.

Hajime opens his duffel bag. He gets his hand in there, rummaging through inside for a bit, and then pulls out some clean clothes, a shirt and a pair of pants, to be exact. "Here." He hands it over to her. "I know they're my clothes, but, you know." He politely looks away.

Chiaki graciously takes both the shirt and pants with her. "It's okay. Thank you."

He keeps his eyes off of her, letting her change out of her ruined and bloody clothes. As soon as she gave him the okay, he checks over her. As he’d thought, the spare clothes end up looking a bit too big for her.

He can’t help but wince a bit when he sees her fingers touch over that spot on her throat. Not even a small mark was left there, and if he hadn’t brought the knife down himself, no one would be the wiser about what happened.

Who would’ve thought that the friend he knew for as long as he remembered would turn out to be one of those ajins too? Not him, for sure.

Hajime grunts softly as he checked over his back; although his friend broke his fall, he could imagine his back having a few bruises from them, and if here were to add the beating he received last night—

He sees Chiaki look at him with concern, and he quickly waves it off with, "Don't worry about it. It should be fine after a few days or so."

They make themselves comfortably seated on the floor; or at least, as comfortably as they can in this dusty old place.

The tension he wasn’t aware of until now broken when Chiaki tells him, "Hajime, I'm going to ask you something," She looks at him with a difficult expression as she then adds, "And, I want you to be honest with me."

Hajime has a heavy feeling about this. Still, he goes along with it and nods. "Go on."

With an ashamed expression on her, she asks, "Why are you still helping me? Ever since that accident, I don’t know if I can even be considered human anymore.” One of her hands clench. “You saw it, right? You saw me come back to life. I'm grateful that you still chose to stick by me, I truly am, but don't you think that getting involved in this will only hurt you? Or worse?"

It turns quiet for a while after that was let out of the bag. Chiaki has since looked away from him; her head lowers and she gazes on the floor.

“I don’t what’s the right answer either.” He admits to her, right before his gaze hardens and he adds, "But the only thing I can say to that is this: don't you dare say something like that again. It's obvious to me you can still feel pain, emotions, and everything else like all humans do. So what if you won't stay dead anymore?"

She grits her teeth. She almost shouts, "It's not about that. Other people were hurt because of me!" She looks over her trembling hands. "And now, I even got someone killed—!"

"They attacked. And you reacted in self-defense."

"What if something happens to you?"

Her last question had a good point over there, but he shakes his head, saying, “Even before I made up my mind that night, I always knew that kind of risk would hit harder on me.”

“Then, if you already knew that, why did you still—”

“Because you’re my friend.” He takes her hands into his. “I mean, come on, we’ve known each other since way back in middle school. You being an ajin won’t change anything between us.”

“…Hajime.” Her hands go cold in his warm ones.

"What matters the most is, you still are and always will be human to me. Don't let anyone else let you think otherwise, okay?"

At the end of that, a small, sincere smile flashes over his face.

Seeing that put all sorts of messy, ugly feelings within her. She forces herself to nod, replying, "Okay. I'll try, but only if you don't get yourself into dangerous situations.” She mumbles, “I don't think you can come back if that happened."

"Trust me,” He sighs while shaking his head. “I'm not planning on testing that out either.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“Besides, we’ll get through this together. Isn't that what you used to say before?"

"I…guess."

“I’m sure it’s going to be fine.” He lets her hands go.

As time passed on, it soon became clear on how much those events took a toll on their body. In Hajime’s case, now that the danger’s passed by, his eyelids are starting to feel rather heavy.

He yawns. “Well then, I’ll go ahead and sleep for now, if you don’t mind.” His body lies down on the floor, arms stretched behind his head. He glances at her and says, “You should take some rest too. After everything that’s happened, I’m sure you must be very tired.”

“Maybe later.” is what she replied with. Chiaki remains seated on where she was.

Confident that they’ll be fine for now, he lets himself drift away to sleep. At the same time, he looks back at what he said. There were two more reasons for him to do it, but he didn't feel it appropriate to mention either of them to her. One was too personal, and the other, he felt that his other reason will only feed her guilt even more.

 _'You gave up a better future for me.'_ He shuts his eyes off. He muses to himself, remembering that day. _'It's only fair. I'm more than happy to toss mine aside to make sure you still have one after this.'_

* * *

The loud, distinct click of a TV shutting off sounds oddly satisfying to Tosaki. It’s not as if the same news topic continuously repeated over and over again on every possible station, and it wasn’t even noon break yet. Popping a fresh mint in his mouth was one of his learned instincts at this point. He knew the press loved to milk this sort of situation for all its worth, but he couldn’t think that they’d stoop to this level.

“If it helps,” Izumi’s voice breaks the silence, in a way to try and smooth things out for her superior. “The three new victims from last night have already been accounted for. However, I don’t know if I’ll be able to get any information from them since they refused to answer anything relating to Nanami.” She shifts a bit in her seat. “Or at least, that’s what I’ve heard of.”

His arms cross. "Whatever the case is, it seems like our fourth ajin is already proving to be quite the public menace. Even Tanaka hadn’t caused this much trouble when it was him on the run.”

She grimaces upon hearing that statement from her superior. “I…guess so.”

“Then again,” He turns to her with a stern look on his face. “We’re not here to discuss the media’s exaggerations. Was there anything useful you learned from one of the victims?”

She nods. “According to the bus driver I interviewed this morning, he said he saw a ‘living shadow’.” Her look softens somehow to that of sympathy. ”He told me it could’ve ripped him apart, but for some reason, it didn’t.”

Tosaki scoffs. “That man saw one of those things, then? Normally, I would say that it’s absurd, but given the damages done to the incident’s victims, it’s impossible to rule a black ghost out. Still, if that’s the case, we should put him under watch. Is there anything else you’ve learned?”

“Going by what he said, the black ghost was unusually tall; his height would reach its chest. With that in mind, I’d even say it might be taller than Kuro.” After adding that, she then shakes her head, “Aside from confirming a black ghost’s involvement, nothing else came up. He’s still in a slightly catatonic state by that time, so I’m afraid I wasn’t able to gather as much intel as you would’ve liked.”

“That’s a shame to hear, but it’s not a big loss. If that driver’s, and those three delinquents’, conditions improve somehow, you can always conduct another interview with them.”

“I’ll think about that.” Izumi replies, before voicing out, “Still, the fact that this black ghost manifested immediately after her first death is the most concerning part about this case. I can’t help but feel like there’s something more to it, but…"

“But?“ Tosaki raised a brow.

“But…” She trails off, before shaking her head and admitting, “I honestly don’t know either.”

“Maybe you should say that again next time,” Tosaki states to her. He refocuses his attention over the papers over his desk, containing information that ranged from educational background to closest, living relatives.

He harshly grips the back of his head. Locating and securing the target proved to be a lot more troublesome than he thought it’d be. Despite all the witnesses and testimonies they’ve acquired, they’ve still yet to find a clear, reliable lead on the fourth’s whereabouts.

It doesn’t help that Tanaka’s been missing from the labs for quite some time now; add some reports about the individual codenamed as ‘Hat’ coming in and having a possible connection with the incident involving the second ajin, he’d be damned if either of them manages to find fourth first.

Sighing to himself, Tosaki pops another mint in. That’d be a variable that no one, his superiors especially, in particular, will be happy to hear about.

As for Izumi, she kept quiet to herself. If her superior ever needed her for anything, he’ll let her know. Until then, her mind wanders back to the stray black ghost she saw last night, and who’s ajin it belonged to.

She may have never gotten a closer look at it, but she knows for sure it wasn’t Chiaki’s.

* * *

She isn’t sure how many minutes, or hours even, have passed since they’ve had that sobering conversation.

 _‘He thinks I’m still human, huh…’_ Chiaki thought it over again with a short sigh. She holds her legs closer, her arms wrapping tighter around them. _‘I don’t know how I should feel about that.’_

With everything that happened so far, such as experiencing death at least three times now, along with knowing that she can never go back home again, she should’ve dozed off like she told Hajime she would some time ago. She hasn’t slept so much since the incident. Yet somehow, she isn’t feeling it at all.

Maybe it’s the reset from some time ago that did that? If dying will heal everything on an ajin’s body, it won’t be a stretch to believe if hunger and exhaustion are included too.

In that case...

She glances over her arm once more. _‘If I won’t stay dead, am I even alive anymore?’_

It’s so funny, isn’t it? She’d seen the implications about the concept of immortality in plenty of her favorite games before, and they usually leaned on the side of ‘it’s bad, immoral, and against nature’s law’, and the times it’s often used as a motive by the game’s villain to drive the plot forward doesn’t help its case.

Now that she’s the one with this kind of immortality? Hah, hah, hah, it truly is so funny. The idea of infinite lives cheats sounded fun, if a bit unfair on paper, but now that she had something like that in real life? Not fun at all.

_Ring._

She finds herself jumping back at that sound, before recognizing it as the ringtone of her friend’s phone. The beating of her heart steadily grows faster when the implications behind it hit her.

_Ring. Ring._

A groan came from that friend. Hajime groggily sits up, a hand over his mouth as he yawns. He quickly snaps out of his stupor when the same loud, ringing noise repeats once again. He grabs his phone from the duffel bag, and when he saw the number than contacted him—

His heart drops.

On the screen is an unknown number.

Hajime’s eyes dart to his phone’s screen, “Who the hell is this?”

How did someone manage to get ahold of his phone number? The two mull it over; neither of them made a move or said anything. After tense moments have passed, the caller hangs up. And not even a second later, the same caller proceeded to call over them once again.

Against his better judgment, Hajime presses his thumb over the screen and accepts the call.

The line goes in. It’s quiet for a while; Chiaki waits, both in anticipation and anxiety before the recognizable voice of an old man picks up.

_“Hello?”_

Hajime takes a deep breath before pressing the phone over the side of his head and he replies with, “Who are you?” He puts the call on a speaker volume to let Chiaki hear both sides of the conversation.

The person on the other line waits for a second before he answers, _“Oh, my bad. I can’t believe I forgot to introduce myself. I’m so sorry for the trouble. My name is Satou. And you must be?”_

He inwardly rolls his eyes. “Cut the crap out. If you managed to find my number, then you should already know.”

_“I see. You don’t seem to trust me at all. That’s alright, I understand; I truly do. I feel so sorry about the situation with you and your friend Nanami. It must be so hard for kids like you to be put through something so cruel and unfair.”_

Both couldn’t help but tense up when the caller mentioned that. Hajime steels himself, trying his best to remain strong as he scoffs. “I don’t know how you think that’s going to help us believe you. You’re acting too suspicious even at the start.”

_“Again, that’s a reasonable assumption for you to make. Now, I won’t try to convince you or your friend to trust me right now, especially when I haven’t done anything to earn it. But, I think you’ll be interested if I tell you this.”_

His grip on the phone tightens. “And that is?”

_“Like Nanami, I am an ajin as well. You might think it’s unbelievable, but I’ve been one for quite a while now.”_

“Y…You’re seriously one of them too?” He asks, before he shakes his head. “No, I don’t know if I can believe you just yet. You’re probably lying about that for all I know.”

 _“Hmm.”_ The caller thoughtfully hums. _“You’ve got a great head on your shoulders. Nanami is truly lucky to have you as her friend. I know I can’t prove it to you through a call, but if you’d like to, we could meet up at Takeda Shrine. You may not believe me, but I only want to help you two.”_

Before Hajime can bite back with a retort, the caller ends their conversation with, _“Well then, I’ll be seeing you two later.”_

Just like that, the caller hangs up on them.

Hajime looks back at the phone call, and before he knew it, a shiver went over his spine. His hand goes over his hair, thinking about what that ‘Satou’ guy said before he left them hanging. He sneaks a glance at his friend, thinking that she must be as shaken as he is, only to see it wasn’t the case.

Chiaki asks him, “Do you think it could be true?” There’s so much hesitance in her voice, and yet, the spark of hope that lights up in her eyes is hard to ignore.

He sighs, closing his eyes. "I'll be honest here. Whatever the hell that guy says he is, I don't trust him at all.

She keeps silent for a second before saying, “I don’t think he’s all that bad. If he’s really an ajin like he says he is, and he hasn’t been discovered even until now, maybe he can end up being a big help to both of us.”

“I wish I could believe in that as easily as you. For all we know, it could be a trap to lure you out."

“Then we won’t come into that meeting place without planning first. You still got your equipment with you, right?”

He tries to retort, only to pause for a split second before replying, “If you mean the baseball bat, the stun gun, and the revolver, then yeah, I still got them on hand. Even if that helps even things out, we’re still way out in the league when it comes to actual combat.”

She grimaces, remembering the night where they ended up getting outnumbered. “I won’t let anything happen to you this time.” She promises.

They thoroughly discussed what their possible plans would be, just in case they decide to go through with meeting with that caller. They accounted for all sorts of scenarios, varying from the caller coming in alone to them coming in with a whole squad, hidden or otherwise. Right now, it wasn’t sounding good, but if all else fails, he could always have Chiaki use the paralysis scream and use that time to get away as fast and far as they can.

Only one dilemma remains for Hajime; either they give this 'Satou' guy the benefit of the doubt and risk it all or they continue on the way they started off without any long-term plans and try to hope for the best. The second option sounds so much safer to him, but he knows it wouldn’t help Chiaki all that much. They could end up like what happened to the second ajin and his parents when they ran.

With their discussions over, he went with the first option even if it went against what he thought. _‘Calm yourself down.’_ He internalizes to himself as they hop on the stolen bike. _‘Panicking over it won’t do you or Chiaki any good when you get there.’_

He puts the helmet on. He inhales, and then slowly exhales. He tightens his grips on the handlebars. The engines start up. A pair of arms wrap around his waist.

Their ride speeds off. That ‘Satou’ guy said that their meeting place was in Takeda Shrine, which is nearby if he remembers it correctly, but he had no idea about where the hell they are or where are they going. They did have a landmark for it, but he knows it wouldn’t make things that much easier.

By the time they got over to that meeting spot, both are met with two people right in front of the abandoned shrine. A pickup truck is parked right behind them. It may not have been a squad like in the worst-case scenario they’ve planned, but the caller wasn’t alone either.

Hajime cautiously steps off of the bike, followed by Chiaki right after him. They remain a good meter away in distance from the strangers.

Neither of those two men attempt to move closer to them.

The older one of them, a man with graying hair who looked as if he’d be in his late sixties or so, is the first one to speak up, introducing himself. “I am Satou. It’s a pleasure to meet you both at last.”

By his voice, they now know that this is the same guy who called on Hajime’s phone earlier.

The next thing that he did is something neither of them expected. The elderly man got down on his knees, and to her bewilderment, places both hands on his laps. He bows his head down. “Please excuse me for making you and your friend come all the way here.”

While her companion scoffs and crosses his arms at that, Chiaki is taken aback by that humbling action. “No, it’s okay.” She insists, quickly waving her hands off. “You don’t have to do that.”

Satou raises his head, but otherwise, kept himself on his knees. “You must be Nanami, right? You’re a lot kinder than how the media presented you to be in those kinds of news.”

“Get to the point.” The boy refuses to take his eyes off of those two. He subconsciously places himself right in front of his friend, as if to block her view from them.

“Of course.” The old man nods. “As much as I’d love for all four of us to sit down and chat, you two still need proof that I’m an ajin too.” He procures a fairly simple-looking knife from his pocket and aims it towards the exposed side of his craned neck. “That’s fine by me.”

A shocked gasp escapes her, futilely telling him, “No, wait!”

The oddly serene smile didn’t leave Satou’s face even as he slashes through the tender flesh with that sharp blade. His body lurches forward, but he is held back by the other man before he could completely fall to the ground.

Not even a second later, Satou gets himself back on his feet, and just like that, the cut in his throat disappears like it was nothing. He turns himself to their direction. “Please forgive me for that messy display, but I’m afraid that dying like that was the only way to get it across.”

“You’re not hurt, aren’t you?” She asks. It sounds ridiculous; she should know that he’d turn out alright, but she couldn’t help but internally shudder at that.

Satou shakes his head with a relieving jest. “You shouldn’t worry so much. I’m fine, really. There won’t be any lasting effects on me.”

Hajime glances at the knife, and then onto the old man’s neck where fresh blood, which is starting to get coagulated, remains on the healed skin. “Looks like you weren’t lying about that at all. But, I don’t think that’s enough to convince me yet.”

He hums in thought. “Perhaps. Maybe this will.” The old man jabs a thumb towards his companion. "He's had a bit of infamy back in the early two-thousands. Maybe either of you two might’ve had an idea about who he is?"

The other man doesn’t say anything. He kept his arms crossed.

She steps forward a bit to try and take a closer look at the other man. She looks carefully at his face, trying to see if it brought up anything familiar. She shakes her head and says, "I don't know. I don't think I've seen someone like him before."

Hajime steps back in reflex. His chest heaves, before asking in less than stable voice, "That’s…that’s Tanaka Kouji, the second ajin discovered in our country, isn’t he? You've found him?"

She glances at the man, and then went back to her friend and whispers, “That’s Tanaka?”

The man, now identified as Tanaka Kouji, grunts.

“He is,” Satou answers for them. “They didn’t bother to update his public photo, so it’s not surprising it’d be a bit hard to recognize him at first.”

"I have so many questions right now,” Chiaki admits, before retracting that with, “But I don't want to end up wasting your time with so many pointless ones."

Satou gently shakes his head, all while a kind smile adorns his face. "Oh, it's no trouble at all. I have more than enough time to answer, so please feel free to ask as many questions as you want.”

“Really?” Her voice wavers.

“I mean it.” He nods once again. “But for now, you two must be tired from all the excitement yesterday, right?"

Hajime’s suspicions haven’t died down, even after Satou had proven he was an ajin, and with a sentence like that, those suspicions rose up again.

Chiaki’s gaze goes back on the ground, dejectedly replying, “We both were, but I think my friend got it worse than I did.”

“I see. Well then, you two should rest up for now. If it’s alright with your friend, you could come with us. The place we’re staying in isn’t that far.” He gestures towards the truck. “And with this, no one would be able to see Nanami outside.”

Before Hajime can voice out any objections, those died down when his friend held one of his hands tightly. She turns to him, resolve steeled in her tone. “It’s going to be okay now.”

“You seriously are going to trust them, huh.” He lets out a sigh. _‘I guess I can see why. If ajins are as rare as people claim them to be, it’d be hard to find more of them out there. It’d be even harder to find those who’d be willing to help you out instead of focusing on protecting themselves.’_ He turns back to Satou and Tanaka. “Fine. I’ll take your word for it, but as soon as you try anything, I won’t hesitate.”

Satou didn’t look too upset about it; if anything, he looks thoroughly amused by that threat. He heartedly chuckles, playfully jabbing at his companion’s shoulder. “Haha, I think I’m starting to like them already, Tanaka.”

Tanaka looks like he was trying to smile the best he can, but instead, it came across as him painfully grimacing at best and un-smiling like a creepy mascot at worst.

The two men walk up to the truck, while the other two follow by behind them. Satou unlocks the doors, and then glances back at the youngsters. “Hop in, kiddos. I should have plenty of time to answer any questions you might have along the way.” He tells them in a tone reminiscent of a typical, kindly grandfather.

Even though his helmet would obscure it, and so it wouldn’t have the effect he intended, he nonetheless narrows his eyes towards the old man, silently letting him know that he still isn’t fully sold on him as his friend had.

As Chiaki and Hajime both got in their new ride, neither of them ever noticed Tanaka’s IBM as it carefully perched itself on a branch among the trees. It had been watching their movements since their arrival.

The IBM lowers the tranquilizer gun. After what happened between the two groups, it knew that there’s no more need for a certain part of that plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: A quick apology for the unexpected and unannounced hiatus. I'll admit that I got a bit sidetracked with certain things. With that said, things are starting to get interesting soon, especially now that Murder Grandpa and a sad boy have met up with the two DR kids at last.
> 
> Also, a big thanks to Vixen7117 for entertaining my question about the motorcycle scene. If you got the time, you should go and check out her awesome works.


	9. Respite

When Chiaki turned a bit to check on Hajime, she notices how stiff and tense his posture is. She understands his skepticism; they barely knew these people after all, even if one of them was a well-known figure in the country for quite a while.

But, Satou is really nice to them so far. He kind of makes her think about those grandfatherly archetypes, or better yet, one of those mentor archetypes; scratch that, he feels like a perfect blend of both archetypes. Sure, he isn’t exactly as gruff as the typical mentors tend to be, but, he gives off the feeling of one somehow.

It helps that his presence is rather calming. Again, very much like a grandfather’s.

This car ride feels a whole lot smoother than their previous rides, both from last night and especially the one they had that morning. Although he mentioned that no one would be able to see her from the inside, she can’t help but instinctively try and make herself as small as possible in her seat. The last thing she wants is for everyone to get hurt because of her.

Tanaka’s their driver. He hadn’t said anything to them at the moment.

The elder ajin’s voice calls out to her, snapping her out of her thoughts. “So, Nanami,” He turns his head a bit from his seat, asking her, “You’ve mentioned you had plenty of questions a moment ago, right?”

She awkwardly replies with a nod, “I did…There are so many things I don’t know or understand when it comes to being…” She admits while her fingers twiddle at each other a bit. As she goes over her next words, she wonders if her concern sounds a bit offensive. “…Well, this.” She lamely points out.

“I see.” Satou nods in acknowledgement. “Well then, go on and ask away. As I’ve mentioned ago, I’ve got more than enough time to spare.”

She bites her lower lip, and then asks him with, “Why won’t we stay dead?” After thinking about it for a split moment, she then hurriedly adds, “I mean, I know that as ajins, we can’t, but I’m wondering, exactly why not? What makes us come back when regular humans die for good?”

The old man hums in thought. “If it was philosophically, then I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to that.” As if sensing her brief trouble, his tone then changes to that a more optimistic one. ”But because it’s got nothing to do with that, there’s actually a pretty good reason on why we can’t die like humans do. If you don’t mind me asking, how many times have you died already?”

Something catches up in her throat. Her breathe hitches ever so briefly. Those deaths were far from pleasant; even thinking about them made her stomach churn.

After about less than a second of hesitation, she makes herself answer anyway; she didn’t want to keep the kindly old man hanging. “…Three.” Her eyes stare down as she says that.

He hums once more. “So, it’s two more times after the incident, then. In that case, did you notice anything? Was there something each of your resets had in common?”

A hand goes over her shoulder. She finds herself slowly relaxing at her friend’s comforting touch. Steeling herself, she looks back on her previous deaths, no matter how uncomfortable it made her, and searched for what linked them together.

In all three of them, she remembers—

_Indescribable pain. Vision going out. Existence turning blank. Vision coming back._

_Dots of black filling up her surroundings._

She answers after swallowing a lump in her throat, “Every time I died and come back, I think, I saw something.” Her face scrunches up as she recalls those black dots that surrounded her. “They’re black particles, or at least, that’s what they looked like to me. They’re kind of small at first, but after I wake up, they get bigger.” As she says that, she isn’t sure if her explanation was good enough.

When he became quiet for a while, she did get worried for a moment there.

It takes a second before Satou replies with, “Those black particles you saw are the ones responsible for healing everything on your body.” He cheerily explains, “All ajins have them within their bodies. You could even say that they’re the source of our immortality.”

 _‘Then, those are the reason why I keep coming back to life?’_ Those revelations made her pause and think for a bit. It makes sense, but at the same time, she isn’t sure if she liked that. The answer sprang more questions in her mind. _‘If those black particles are in my body, does it mean that they’ve always been there? Or, if not that, did they only come about after I died for the first time? If it’s the latter, then where did they come from?’_

“Black particles? I don’t think I ever saw those before.” Hajime interjects.

An amused snort escapes Satou. “That’s because, as far as everyone here can see, you’re human. Only ajins can see them.”

“I see.” He replies in a neutral tone.

The old man adds in that topic, “Speaking of black particles, they can also be formed into useful allies of some sort,” He shakes his head with a smile. “But that’s something better shown with an actual demonstration, and I’m sure that this car would be a poor environment for that. You’ll see what I mean with that someday.”

With her first question answered, Chiaki proceeds with the next one. This question was the one that troubled her a lot since that night. "Why does the government want to keep ajins with them in the first place?"

Even from his seat, she can tell that Satou has frowned at that question. She hears him sigh.

A solemn tone is laced in his voice as he admits, "I'll tell you the full truth some other time. For now, I can only tell you that those humans believe we can be, and are quite useful in a lot of things. Perhaps, we’re a bit too useful for our own good."

 _‘I don’t like how that sounds.’_ She shudders.

Hajime subconsciously clenches his fists at that. He mutters curses under his breath. She notices her friend’s distress, and without thinking any further, places a hand over his shoulder.

Her hands set on top of her lap while she mulls over her next, and possibly last, for now, question. “So, Mr. Satou, why exactly did you decide to help us out?” Almost immediately after saying that, she quickly backtracks and adds, “It’s not that I don’t appreciate it or anything like that. I’m glad I’m not alone in this, I really am, but…”

Before she can say anymore, the old man kindly interrupts her with a short chuckle. “It’s funny you ask that. Solidarity is exactly why Tanaka and I sought to reach you out before the government does. I feel this should at least explain the gist of it.” He says, handing out a business card of some sort to them.

She gingerly takes it with her and puts it in a view where her friend can see it as well.

The old man’s name is there, and yet, there’s no sign of his first name; but that wasn’t what caught their interest.

“Ajin…” Hajime feels like squinting in complete disbelief when he checks over the next two words. “Protection Committee? You’re seriously running an organization like that?”

“So far, Tanaka and I are the only members,” Satou explains. “I was hoping to expand our group a bit more. You could say that’s the primary reason why we came for you as soon as we saw the news. I’ve always thought that the way things were run here are heavily unfair for us.”

“You mean,” Something wells up within her as she asks that, briefly recalling some lessons her old school taught them, all of which that has become harsher now that she knew the truth. “You want to try fighting for our rights?”

“Yes, exactly.” He affirms. “I know that ajins deserve better than to lose their rights and then be locked up in government custody.” His kind face twists to that of a scowl. “Officially, they say it’s for protection for everyone involved, but Tanaka here knows better than that.”

The second official Japanese ajin grunts quite uncomfortably at that. No one tried to press him about that.

She can only nod a bit in response to that. She remembered what little he mentioned on why the government wants ajins like them in their hands. It’s not a pleasant thought, to imagine the many uses an immortal person could have, especially if that person had been stripped of all rights that should’ve protected them.

Still, she knows that they’d tell her and Hajime the truth someday. Guessing about what the government’s plans were for their kind wouldn’t help much, especially if it’ll only make things even more worrying than it should be.

After accepting those answers to her questions, the next moments that passed by them turned quiet. The only noises that went on were the pickup truck’s engines.

Neither of the two was sure how long their ride lasted; it might’ve been half an hour or so, or even a bit longer than that. Either way, it feels like it all went down so abruptly.

Around, maybe around the timeframe estimated earlier, the silence is broken.

“Ah,” Satou exclaims as their ride finally comes to a stop. “Here we are.”

Hajime and Chiaki glance at the surroundings from their respective side’s glass. It looks like the place was in the middle of nowhere in particular. The hideout, if she’s correctly guessing it to be the one that Satou and Tanaka have been using, was a rundown, abandoned warehouse. At a closer look, there aren’t any nearby apartments, civilian complexes, or anything that hinted of humans close by that hideout.

A couple of clicking noises alerts the two teenagers that both grown men have already left. They then quickly follow after.

Hajime hadn’t taken his helmet off just yet. No one had asked him to take it off or even pried him about that. He keeps close to Chiaki’s side, his guard remaining up in case if Satou or Tanaka thought that now would be the good time to jump on them.

That kind of scenario never came to fruition, but his wariness never left him.

Once all four of them got out of the pickup truck, the older ajin led both youngsters inside of the rundown warehouse.

As soon as they were in a, well, the closest thing they’ve got to a ‘room’, Satou gestures to the two teenagers, spreading his arms wide with a playful grin. “Welcome to our humble abode.”

Said teenagers glance around their surroundings. Skepticism remains present in Hajime as he looks around, while curiosity has a bigger influence in Chiaki’s case.

He lets out a light-hearted laugh. “I know it doesn’t look like much, but feel free to make yourselves at home.” He points over to some packages at the corner and tells them, “Just in case, we’ve got a couple of futons over there for you two.”

Chiaki lightly bows her head. “Oh, uh, thanks, Mr. Satou.”

Hajime chooses not to say anything about that. He keeps his glare towards the old man.

“It’s no trouble at all.” Satou insists. “You don’t have to thank me for every little thing.”

The old man didn’t seem to be phased by the other teen’s reaction that much. If anything, it’s almost like he’s treating the boy like a troublesome, but an ultimately harmless kid. In some way, he’s right about that.

* * *

It felt like it’s been only a short amount of time had passed. One moment, they’ve been in the ‘room’ those two ajins brought them in, and then, the next thing he knew—

He touches around his face, internally freaking out when his palm met with skin instead of glass. His hands scurry all over the floor as he looks around his surroundings. ‘ _Where did my helmet go?’_ He isn’t sure if he took it off before this.

“Good morning, Hinata.” The last person he wanted to hear calls out to him.

At that point, Hajime suddenly shoots up to a sitting position with a gasp. He turns his head around, and as his gut feeling told him, it’s that old man who called to him. He shakily stands up to his feet; his eyes narrows to that of a glare. “What did you do?”

The old man’s perpetual smile fades to that of a confused frown. “Huh,” He tilts his head to the side. “What do you mean?”

He keeps himself in place, not saying a word to him. He couldn’t shake off the bad feeling he had about this old man since they’ve met, and now, he’s sure there’s something more sinister going on with this.

Satou looks around him, before pursing his lips in acknowledgment. “Oh, I see. I think I understand what you mean by that.” He lets out a short nod after saying that.

Hajime clenches his fists, his stance tensing further. “Cut that bullshit out, and tell me, what the hell are you talking about?” While he makes his demand, he retains heavy caution with his next action. His eyes dart over while his body remains a good distance away from him.

A fond smile goes over the old man as he shakes his head in a fond way, like he’s dealing with an angry grandson. "After we showed you around here, you and Nanami ended up sleeping for a whole day. It’s nine AM right now, by the way.”

“W…we did?” He questions incredulously, raising a skeptical.

He nods once again in affirmation. “You two did. If I thought about it, that’d make sense; you two should be exhausted physically and mentally after everything you’ve been through the past two days.” He sighs at that part, before amending that with a brighter, “Still, you were both quite adorable."

The boy points a finger towards the side of his head. “That doesn’t explain why I can’t find my helmet anywhere, and I don’t remember taking it off.”

“Oh, right.” He apologetically says, “I’m sorry for doing it without your permission, but I took your helmet off after you fell asleep.” The old man shrugs his shoulders. “I thought it might’ve been very uncomfortable to sleep in that.”

“It’s fine,” He mumbles and pauses, a bit hesitant to add, “And thanks for that, I guess.”

After all of that, Satou suddenly pipes in with their awkward topic, “Ah, if you’re going to ask, she’s over there with Tanaka right now. I think they’re having quite the lively conversation.” He jabs a thumb towards a far-off corner.

Hajime steps forward a bit, and it’s true enough; those two are there, alright. Both Chiaki and Tanaka are currently seated on a worn-down couch. About what Satou said with their ‘lively conversation’, yeah, sure. Sitting far apart from each other and have lots of awkward staring definitely makes so much for a lively conversation.

But he didn’t say that out loud.

Hajime looks over at Satou once again with a questioning look on his face.

As if he was making a decently educated guess about the boy’s next question, the old man tells him, “In case you’re still worried about it, don't worry. We should be fine. No one else knows where we are." He waves a hand around as if it’d help him emphasize his point better.

“Guess that should sound good,” He begrudgingly admits. “For now.”

Satou gestures a beckoning hand towards him. “Come on, Hinata. We should go and join them.” He didn’t seem to notice the flinch on the boy’s face when he called his name out.

With a resigned sigh, the sole human follows after the elderly ajin. He isn’t completely sure on what to make out of those two, and what their true goals could be, especially Satou. _‘He’s still too shady for me, but I guess I’ll have to play along for now.’_

Satou invites himself over to the other two’s nonexistent conversation, plopping his elbows by the back of their couch. "Say, is anyone here up for a few rounds of games?” He asks with a charming smile.

Hajime wasn’t that close, but he wasn’t too far from the three of them either. He inwardly cringes at the old man’s lack of tact or subtlety.

“Games?” Tanaka manages to ask after he’s been startled silent for at least a few seconds.

As for the other, younger ajin, it looks as if she’s about to say something, but held it back; almost as if she’s wondering whether she heard that wrong or not.

The old man might’ve seen their…less than stellar reactions. But then, could ‘seen’ even be used here? Because honestly, the old man always keeps his eyes shut for some reason. Hajime won’t lie; seeing a person whose eyes always remain shut creeps him out for some reason he can’t explain.

Satou then tells them, “I’ve managed to acquire a copy of Halo 4 some time ago, but if you guys want to play something else, then let me know.”

And just like that, Chiaki snaps back to reality, like mentioning the game’s title was some sort of activation code. “Wait, did you say, Halo 4?”

This was the first time her eyes truly shined since yesterday’s discovery, Hajime notes to himself.

Chiaki continues to ramble on excitedly, "And, do you really have other games too? Can you tell me what kind?" After letting those out, she forced herself to stop from saying any more. “Oh, sorry. I must’ve been overbearing, right?”

“No, it’s alright. I don’t mind if you speak your mind up.” Satou heartily laughs at her enthusiasm. "And of course, I do have plenty of more. Let's see, so far, I’ve got all of the entries from the Halo series, including Halo 4 as I’ve mentioned earlier,” He begin as he counts those games down with his fingers, “DOOM, Shadowrun, Spelunker, and Postal, to name a few. I believe I have some more, but I’ve got to check over them again. I’ve been playing games since I was a kid, after all." 

Chiaki's eyes light up even more at the mention of each game the older ajin currently had on hand. In addition to that, both corners at her lips look as if they’d tug on even further until her grin reaches her ears.

After reminiscing over it, he then realizes something and exclaimed, "Ah, but then again, most of the ones I have right now are FPS games.” He apologetically glances over her direction. “No offense, but I don't know if they're the kind you'd like to play with—"

She rapidly shakes her head. "No, no, it's okay. I do like FPS games too. I don't discriminate in genres, and if anything, I'll enjoy any and every game you can think of."

His face shifts to that of a happier one. "Oh, in that case, I'm so glad to hear that. I never thought I’d meet a fellow gamer like this, especially not one who’s familiar with the classics like you are."

“Me neither!” She exclaims.

“Either way, it’s great to know that this generation still appreciates the art of gaming, including the classic ones.”

“And I’m so happy to know that even older people can enjoy video games just as much.”

While the two video game fanatics engage in their lively conversation, both Hajime and Tanaka look at each other with pity, the kind that only people like them could understand. They shared one, solemn thought in solidarity.

_'Oh God, please help us now. There are two of them in the same room.'_

So, there’s that; the two avid gamers manage to pull the other two casuals in with them as they decided then and there to play Halo 4 together. All four of them sit as comfortably as they could on the worn-down couch. Each pair stuck close together; Hajime and Chiaki are sitting close to each other and Satou and Tanaka did the same.

Of course, their current seating arrangement also meant that Hajime and Tanaka are seated at each edge, while Chiaki and Satou sat close together. The latter two didn’t seem to mind, but Hajime doesn’t look too thrilled about that.

At the moment, their gaming session is going as well as anyone would’ve expected.

"Tanaka, you're so surprisingly bad at this," Satou remarks, watching as his comrade’s on-screen character try to walk past an invisible wall, to which Tanaka’s completely clueless about. He didn’t even bother to hide his grin or the fact he’d burst into laughter soon.

By that, not really. As it turns out, Tanaka’s performance is utterly abysmal when it came to video games of any kind.

"Mr. Satou, that's a little too harsh for you to say." Chiaki joins in, gently reprimanding the older ajin with an unusually serious look on her face. If anyone else saw that little interaction the two had, it might’ve been a bit weird.

“No, he’s completely right. I’ve never played games before. But,” Tanaka grips his controller a bit tighter than he should. He grits his teeth. “Don’t worry, I swear I’ll get this right.”

That earns a chuckle from the old man. “My, that’s come conviction you’ve got there.”

“I…” Tanaka almost looks down out of bashfulness; he manages not to do that since that’d mean keeping his eyes off of the screen and potentially getting shot at. “I swear, I won’t let you down.”

Aside from making sure that the other two, Satou especially, didn’t try anything funny, Hajime mostly keeps to himself. While he might be the only human, it’s not as if he’s feeling out of place; it’s just that, he knows that he probably shouldn’t step in their small talk for now. Besides, it’s not like he could add anything meaningful to that.

Gameplay-wise, it feels less like a four-player co-op between teammates and more like two veterans mercilessly mowing AI enemies away while the recruits are just there, hopelessly tagging along; those two recruits are trying to best to survive and not get in the veterans’ way. It’s as pathetic as it sounds, even in a campaign like this.

“I missed.” Tanaka hisses, frustration seeping through his face. He furiously mashes the buttons down; each of the shot he puts out ends up as a miss several times more. “Damn it!”

Satou hums, having witnessed that blunder even with his eyes closed. “Oh my, it looks like you’ve got a terrible aim even in games.”

That remark made him groan so pitifully.

Chiaki momentarily glances at his direction. She says to try and cheer him up, "It's okay, Tanaka.” She thinks, and then speaks up once again, to try and inspire him somehow, “I think you're doing a whole lot better than Hajime did during his first time with the series."

Even when her eyes went away from the screen for a little while, it’s pretty clear that her hands remains diligent as ever on the controller she holds, since her in-game character continues their merciless onslaught on the targets.

Without thinking, Hajime nods and hums in agreement. "Yeah, exactly what she said—" It’s only until he came over what she said again, he immediately shoots a glare at Chiaki, swiftly taking his words back as the implications dawns upon him. "Hey! That time wasn't my fault and you know that!"

She flashes him a playful smirk. "Huh, I never said it was."

“Oh, is that so?” Satou asks, his interest piquing at the story. “I’d certainly love to hear more about that incident. It’s hard to believe there’d be anyone who could do worse in games than Tanaka.”

“No, not happening.” Hajime immediately shoots that down as well with a metaphorical bullet; around the same time his character took down an AI enemy with a literal one.

“Sorry, Mr. Satou.” Chiaki apologetically tells him. “I did promise back then we’d keep that moment to ourselves.”

“Aww. That’s such a shame. I’m sure it would’ve been a funny story to tell. Oh well.” And to amp his disappointment up, he just has to go and put a pouty frown on his face.

When it’s on a kid, it’d be cute, but since it’s being used on a sixty-something or more old man, well, the effect ended being a lot more unsettling than it should be. Not to mention, it’s so very awkward.

Their gaming session went on longer than he thought it would’ve had; they’ve since put in titles other than Halo 4. As usual, the two resident gamers plowed and bulldozed their way through the ranks rather quickly; considering the ‘competition’ they’ve got, if it can even be called that, it wasn’t surprising at all. Both Satou and Chiaki are almost equal in their gaming skills, though there are a few times where it’s tilted slightly in the latter’s favor.

Satou noticed that. He’s heavily delighted about that as well, as making him a bit more competitive than he usually is.

For the casual pair, well, at least one of them is faring alright. Hajime steadily drags himself somehow, despite knowing he’s no match for those two at all. He’s at a decent pace, and that’s all that mattered to him. Poor Tanaka’s lagging far behind them all; they’ve lost count of how many times his character fell off the stage by accident.

There isn’t a clock nearby to tell him the exact time, but he has a feeling that they’ve been going at this for a few hours now. He should know; he’s the only one who took some time out to take his lunch earlier. Excuse him for being the only mortal around this group.

Something festers in him. He never thought that he’d be thinking about this, but…

Maybe this won’t be so bad.

Hajime sneaks a glance over Chiaki. He sees her actually smiling and genuinely laughing, something he hasn’t seen ever since she got run over and had everything about her outed to the whole country. Something warm filled up his chest; he honestly thought that he’d never see her like that again. He can’t help but let a small smile go over his face.

Yeah, maybe this might end up being good for her.

Even though he can’t bring himself to completely trust those two yet, he can only hope that having these two around would help her understand her new condition better, something that he, a completely normal human, lacks.

He won’t fail again. He swears it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: First of all, sorry for the chapter's delay. There was a power interruption that happened for a full day, so I wasn't able to work on it much. Second of all, video game bonding for the win! I'll admit that I never played Halo 4 (or that much games, for that matter), so forgive me if I got a few things wrong.


	10. Reckon

Another ordinary day passes by.

It’s been a while since they’ve slept so much, Chiaki realizes. She also realizes she doesn’t need to do that anymore, what, with being close to immortal now, but she’s not exactly keen on resetting herself the same way Satou often does. She did think she was human her whole life; it’s so hard to believe that even until now.

Those thoughts kept her from sleeping as deeply as she used to. It’s weird; she’s now waking up a lot earlier, and she isn’t a morning person.

A few moments ago, Satou left, meaning that it’s just her, Hajime, and Tanaka who’re left around in this hideout.

It didn’t come out of where; he already told them in advance that he’s going to go and get some supplies like food and such for everyone the other day. When she asked him about it, he reminded her, quote-unquote,

_“Ah, about that, no one knows about me yet, so I should be alright going out for stuff. Besides, your friend’s still human with plenty of needs. I don’t expect him to live as we do now, do you?”_

Her friend didn’t say anything about that, but she can tell that he relaxed somewhat upon hearing that. He still doesn’t trust him, and she can see where he’s coming from. They’ve only been here with them for a few days so far.

As for what Satou said, she completely understands his logic, and unless if he were to somehow get run over or get violently mugged while he’s outside, there’s no real danger in him getting exposed, what with him being already aware of what he is. Hajime reminded her about that a few times as well when she told him about it. Still, she can’t help but worry a bit for Satou somehow anyway.

Now that it’s come to her attention, it feels kind of weird, to not continuously fear for their lives or to not constantly worry about the government for each minute that goes on. It’s not exactly gone per se—those lingering thoughts invaded the back of their minds at random times but it isn’t as bad as it’d been a few days ago.

It isn’t super early, as the sun is starting to rise, but both Hajime and Tanaka are still sound asleep in their respective futons.

After she comfortably sets herself down on the couch, she decided to pass some time by keeping herself busy in trying out Satou’s game collection. He gave her highly enthusiastic permission to borrow them whenever it feels needed.

She couldn’t be any more grateful to him. Video games have always been an escape for her; they’ve done well in distracting her from the world, especially during her current situation.

Before she starts it up, she mutes the console’s volume to keep herself from disturbing the other two’s sleep.

With that done, she’s going through a new playthrough of Spelunker. She lets herself get immersed in the game’s simplistic graphics; she’s always been a fan of the video games’ retro designs, and it’s been a while since she last played this.

She might’ve lost track of time once again. She has no idea how long she’s been at this; she already finished with Spelunker some time ago and has since switched to playing Bomberman II.

Sometime after that, she hears some shifting, followed by a yawn. Hajime takes a seat next to her while he tiredly rubs his eyes. “Morning. Slept well?” He yawns again.

Though her eyes remain focused on the screen, she greets him back and nods. “Morning to you too, and yeah, I guess so.” She hands him a second controller, the same one she’s been keeping with her in case a moment like this happens.

A soft laugh comes out of his mouth. “Sure.” He takes it in his hands, while she gets up to plug him in as the game’s player two.

The two play a round or so in that game; predictably, Hajime lost every single time. He doesn’t seem to mind it that much, though. There are a few times where he almost won.

They both hear another shuffling, followed by a loud yawn, letting them know that Tanaka’s awake too. The adult tiredly makes his way over to them. Bags are visible under his eyelids.

She turns to him and greets him with a smile, “Morning, Tanaka.” After remembering something, she then adds, “Mr. Satou left some time ago, I think.”

“Of course he did.” He mutters.

“So, if it’s okay with you,” She thinks over it, before asking him, “Do you want to join us?” She’s about to get up from her seat to come and pick up the third controller before the adult raises a hand.

“I’ll be fine.” He declines, taking a seat on the couch. His position is at least half a meter away from the two.

She decides not to press him on that any further. That ended their brief conversation right then and there.

Hajime briefly leaves to prepare their breakfast, but before he did so, he let them know after saying a quick “Excuse me.” while he gently sets his controller down on the couch, right next to Chiaki.

Both she and Tanaka let him do so with a relaxed “Okay” and an amicable “Alright.”

The boy walks to another ‘room’, or at least, the closest equivalent to one. He opens the fridge, checking its contents with a frown. _‘No wonder that old man left so early today.’_ He thinks to himself while he groans internally.

From what little, somewhat edible ingredients he managed to scrounge somehow, he tries to make something serviceable enough for their breakfast. He refuses to touch the cups of instant noodles in there, even if they were the only option left there

It isn’t anything impressive; all he ends up making are three slices of toast with some butter slathered on to. Still, he supposes that those are better than nothing, and those are infinitely better than the instant cup noodles.

He comes back to the two people he left behind moments ago. He takes a look at them and notices that Tanaka’s holding the console right now; from what he can see, the adult’s trying to play a round of the game, and his friend’s gently helping him out. It also looks like he’s doing somewhat better in the game than he usually does.

Hoping that he isn’t interrupting it too much, he plops himself right back on the couch and he hands over the other two slices to them. “Sorry if it isn’t much.” He apologizes to them sheepishly, letting them know that it’s all he could with the limited items.

Tanaka takes his share with a shrug, while Chiaki tells him, “No, it’s fine.” while she takes hers.

Their brief breakfast goes on without much trouble. Several more moment passes by them, and before any of them knows it, the door clicks open.

Everyone tenses up once they hear that. It’s highly likely that Satou came back, but then, there’s also a chance that it’s someone else; whether it’s someone who stumbled upon here by accident or worse, someone who’s supposed to track the two ajins down, remains yet to be seen.

After a tense second passes, both Tanaka and Chiaki immediately relax once they hear the friendly voice they’ve grown used to, thankful that it’s the first option. Hajime keeps his eyes on the old man who steps into their view.

“I’m back, kiddos!” The old man’s jolly voice calls out to them. In both hands are a few packs of plastic bags, all of which contained different sorts of necessities. He sets them down on a table nearby.

“Welcome back, Mr. Satou.” Tanaka says to him, a slight smile on his face. His voice also happens to be a lot warmer than it usually is.

Chiaki also follows after with an equally as warm, “Welcome back.”

Satou steps closer to the couch; he looks at the entertainment system’s screen with slight interest and then dons a surprised look at seeing Tanaka’s marginally improved performance, before returning his attention to the ones he briefly left behind. “I didn’t take too long out there, did I?” He asks.

“I don’t think you took that long,” Tanaka replies. His face scrunches up as he adds afterward, “But I’m not too sure.”

“Well, at least you’re having fun,” Satou remarks, before going towards the gadget; he crouches down to his knees to reach for another controller. He turns his head around to face them with a smile, asking, “Mind if I join in?”

Chiaki replies with a rather enthusiastic “Yeah,” along with a nod.

Tanaka takes some time before he answers with a shrug and a somewhat insecure “I guess so.”

It didn’t take long for the old man to join them in their new gaming session. Satou sits comfortably on the couch; a serene smile is on his face as he holds on the controller firmly. The game of two turned into a game of three.

Hajime, who decided to sit out the session this time around, watches their competition with interest. He inwardly winces in pity for Tanaka; he knows all too well that with not just one, but two gaming fanatics, he doesn’t stand a chance.

When he sees Tanaka’s in-game character getting blown up after around ten seconds since the round started, he freaking called it.

After that happens, Satou whistles not-so-innocently while Chiaki childishly glares at him.

In the background, Tanaka sighs and pretty much accepted his fate those ten seconds ago.

* * *

Things continue to go by smoothly. Sometime after everyone, except for Satou, took their lunch, the old man requested for all three of them to come and gather with him. When Hajime pressed him about the reason, the old ajin just smiled and told him, “I think it’s about time Nanami learns more about being an ajin.”

Though reluctant, he begrudgingly agreed to go with it at his friend’s request.

And now, that’s what led them to this.

The four of them are standing by in a larger, more spacious area in the warehouse. A lot of important things, including the table, the fridge, and Satou’s collection are out of the potential hazard zone.

Satou excitedly clasps his hands together. “Alright, here we go.” He goes on to regard the two teenagers, especially towards the boy. “You don’t have to worry much about this; I’ve done this before with Tanaka back when I found him. All we’re going to do today is to test and measure how much Nanami’s aware of everything related to ajins.”

Before he can say anything more, he sees her raise a hand. He keeps his mouth shut, allowing her to let him know about whatever that concerns her.

“So, Mr. Satou, there’s something else I’ve wanted to ask you.” Inwardly, she wonders if she’s becoming too overbearing with all of her countless questions.

Satou just kindly regards her and says, “I don’t mind answering more, so go ahead and ask me whatever you want to ask.”

Once she hears him giving the okay, she says, “I’m not exactly sure how it works since I’ve found it out just recently but, I was wondering how and why our voice has this kind of effect.”

“Oh,” The subject piques his interest. “What kind of effect?”

She shifts around uncomfortably, remembering the last time she used that. “It only happened twice so far. I guess I sort of yelled at humans, and then, they stop moving, literally. It’s almost they got paralyzed.”

“You’re saying that we can paralyze humans with our voice?” Satou asks her to make sure. The lines on top of his forehead crinkle while he ponders on that interesting prospect.

She shrugs. "I have no idea why, but yeah. I guess we can." Now that she thought about it, she hasn’t questioned about that thing much; then again, compared to literal immortality and such, it isn’t that impressive.

"I see.” The old man remarks, before he giddily tells her, “Thanks for finding that out. That's quite the useful information we could use at some point. Is there anything else you want to add to it?"

“The last time I used it, I think,” She winces as she remembers that particular incident, “I think it affected both the motorcyclist and Hajime around the same time. I’m not completely sure about it, but I think range had something to do with that.”

“How interesting.” The old ajin turns his attention to a certain someone. “So, Hinata—”

Even though the old ajin isn’t even halfway through with what he’s saying, the boy flinches once he hears his name is called. His shocked face then contorts into a scowl. Facing towards the old man, he grumpily asks him, “What do you want this time?”

“Do you mind if we test one thing or two a few times?” Satou asks as leans himself forward a little, focusing more closely over to him. He doesn’t look all that bothered by the boy’s treatment towards him, no matter how rude it seemed to be.

“Yes, I would mind if it’s you.” He snaps back.

Satou smiles. “That makes everything a lot simpler, then.” He ignores the boy’s confused look and muttering, and then returns his attention to the young ajin. “Go on, Nanami.” He urges her.

“Wait, what?” Hajime sputters out.

“I,” Her concerned glance switches from Satou to Hajime. “I don’t know if I should do that.”

Noticing his friend’s worried look, he tries to reassure her by saying, “If it helps, it didn’t really hurt me the first time it happened. Sure, I wasn’t able to move at all for a while, but it’s not like it froze my bones or anything like that.”

The old man pats on her head. “See? He’s alright with it, so there shouldn’t be any more problems with it, right?”

“I…I guess so…” She admits, before taking a deep breath.

The others stay close as they anticipate it.

Her eyes close, focusing on the effects of her voice. She feels it build up in her throat once again; like the other times before this, it felt like a force was threatening to spill from within.

A _yell_ quickly escapes her lips. It becomes clear to her that this one is no less than intense compared to the other times she used before.

The effects are immediate. Hajime’s face freezes to that of a surprised look, his body stiffens, and then he goes completely slack as a whole. He ungraciously falls onto the floor like a single domino. The one thing that kept it from being too bad is that he lands on his back instead of landing on his face; it probably hurts a little, but not as much as it would’ve been.

Though the other two ajins remains in their vicinity, neither of their bodies reacted to her voice like Hajime’s did.

“Huh,” Satou goes over to check on the fallen boy. He crouches down and pokes at a stiff shoulder. “Looks like it only works on humans.”

Shortly after that, Hajime starts to move around again. He gets himself up on both legs and glares at the old man, crossing his arms as well.

The girl is quick to come over to him, patting her hands over his arms and back to check for any injuries. “You weren’t hurt that bad, were you?” She asks him.

His face quickly softens as he shakes his head. “I’m fine, really.”

“It looks like it lasted for about ten seconds on him.” Satou notices, having gotten himself to his feet as well. “But I doubt that’s definitive. It might last longer, depending on what are the factors.” His brows furrow as he entertains a thought. “Maybe we should put more tests, just to be sure.”

“We’re not going to kidnap some people for this, aren’t we?” Tanaka wonders with a frown.

Satou hums as if he’s considering that thought. “Well, now that you mentioned that, that’d give us more options. I feel like if we keep using Hinata as our basis, he might even gain immunity from the ajin’s voice.” He says the last one with a laugh.

Chiaki doesn’t know if she should say something about that. Although she hopes that they’re just joking about it, it does sound a little mean-spirited. _‘There’s no way they’d actually go out and kidnap some people to test our paralysis screams a bit more, right?’_ She convinces herself on the inside.

“Hey, you do realize that I’m still standing right here…” Hajime deadpans. He sighs in resignation when it’s clear that the elderly ajin won’t clear that up anytime soon.

Aside from confirming the voice is indeed a legitimate case, they didn’t go with any further testing with it in the meantime.

Now with that out of the way, Satou places everything back on track. “So, Nanami,” He calls out to her, and once he’s sure he got her attention, inquires her, "Do you remember the black particles I've mentioned before?"

She simply nods at that. The answer he gave her not too long ago is still fresh in her mind.

He takes that as a sign to continue, "There's a proper name for them. They're called 'Invisible Black Matter’ or IBM for short.”

She nods and says a quiet “Mhm.” at that, letting him know that she’s still paying attention to him.

Satou explains further, “It's generally used to refer to our source of immortality, but most people also use that label to refer to the useful allies I’ve mentioned before.” He turns to directly regard her. “You’ve seen one before, right, Nanami?"

“I…I guess so.” She duly notes, thinking back on the two separate occasions she saw the ghost, “So the ghost that helped back then is called an IBM.”

“Exactly.” He then gestures an arm towards his comrade. He beckons him with a slight tilt of his head and a smile, "Now, Tanaka, if you don't mind?"

Tanaka wordlessly goes through with what the elderly ajin requested him. His face contorts to that of heavy concentration, and in no time at all, massive black mass begins to form behind the aforementioned ajin’s back.

Chiaki steps back a bit out of reflex. Her heart starts to beat faster as she takes in the forming black mass that is similar to the ones she’s seen before.

Hajime can’t see what’s going on, but that didn’t stop him from staying close to her; he places a hand over her shoulder to help keep her calm somewhat. His eyes follow through where his friend might’ve seen it; even so, he can’t exactly pinpoint where it might be.

The black mass then solidifies into a humanoid shape.

She takes the newly-formed creature in, intently studying its shape. From what she can observe so far, the IBM is decently taller than everyone else, at least over two meters tall; even Satou could only reach at least up to its jaw. Build wise, it’s rather standard; not exactly buff and muscular, but it isn’t thin and bony either.

The IBM’s most prominent feature is its ‘face’, that is, if it can even be called that. Like the other IBM Chiaki saw before, this one didn’t have visible eyes, but unlike that one, Tanaka’s IBM has a mouth; a pair of serrated lines formed on the space where a mouth should be, giving the impression that its bandages have been torn off at each side. With the way it’s curled up, the IBM’s ‘mouth’ also gives off the impression of a ghastly smile.

“There you have it, that’s Tanaka’s IBM,” Satou says, introducing them somehow to the solidified black mass. He adds, “Incidentally, there are some people who call them ‘black ghosts’ instead, to help differentiate them from the matter inside our bodies, but I prefer calling them IBM’s for simplicity’s sake.” At the end of that, his face then turns apologetic as he realizes something crucial. “Oh, my bad, Hinata. I forgot that you can’t see them.”

“Eh, it’s fine. I think I can do better without seeing it.” The boy apathetically shakes that off.

“Suit yourself, then,” Satou responds.

Tanaka’s IBM remains right where it currently stands, right behind its ajin. It quizzically tilts his head at the teenagers; its creepy smile never left its ‘face’.

The creature’s sudden movement makes her step back a bit in reflex. She then raises an arm to try and shield the only human around.

“Don’t worry,” Satou says to try and calm her down. “I know it looks like it can, but it’s not going to attack you or your friend.” He faces towards the IBM’s user. “You’ll make sure that won’t happen, won’t you?”

Tanaka huffs in response. “Of course it won’t.” To help his point, his IBM withdraws itself, stepping farther away from the two teenagers. It ends up helping a bit.

“Is there anything else I need to know about IBMs?” Her eyes stay on the IBM.

He pursed his lips before he replies, “Now that you mentioned it, yes. I’ve noticed this back then; after at least ten minutes or so, it’d start fading away. Even mine does the same thing, so it’s fair to say that they’d last for that time on average.”

“Hm, I see.” She nods in understanding. _‘So there’s a time limit for them too. I guess that makes sense.’_

The old man continues with his impromptu lecture of some sort. "I’ve had yet to check if it’s true for all of us, but most ajins can summon IBMs. You certainly do happen to have one as well, right, Nanami? Unless if the ones that showed up those times just happened to be passing by, of course." He jokingly says at the last one.

“Maybe they did.” Chiaki softly mumbles. If she remembers correctly, that’s pretty much what happened back there, at least in her point of view.

He briefly frowns once he hears that. His face turns neutral and he regards her once again, asking her, “From what the leaked footage that was shown all over the place has shown, that driver and those cops were thrown by something, correct? You saw what did them in, did you?”

She sadly confirms, “They were, and yeah, I did see what threw them off. It’s an IBM, just like the one that Tanaka has.”

“If that truly is the first time you died and that IBM is yours, then count myself impressed with it.” Upon seeing her confused look, he clarifies what he meant by adding, “Tanaka here has been an ajin for more than a decade now, but he hasn’t manifested his IBM until around less than a month ago.”

Said IBM perks up once the old man mentions that.

The old man decides to move on to the next topic. “This might be a bit too sensitive for me to ask, but,” He asks her in clarification, “Tell me, it really was your IBM that saved you back at the incident, right?”

“I…” She thinks back on the two incidents where the IBM appeared; she can see why Satou would assume that it’s the same one that showed up twice and it’s hers, but, there’s something about that theory that didn’t sit right with her. The IBM that saved her during the first incident had already appeared a year before she died a few days ago.

He wordlessly reminds her with a calm but strong, “Hm? Is there anything troubling you?”

“I don’t know…” She admits, shaking her head with a sigh.

Satou raises a brow. He asks her, “Why is that?”

Chiaki thinks back about the IBM that, directly or not, helped her escape at her first death, and compares it with the IBM that attacked those thugs. "They feel...how do I put this, hm…" She bites her lip, trying to think of a way to explain it. Although she isn’t sure if it gets her point across, she tells him, "They both felt kind of different somehow."

Satou hums thoughtfully as he takes the information in. "That's some rather interesting information.” He muses, placing two fingers over his chin. “If you don't mind telling me, can you specify the differences?"

Her mind went back to the times she saw those two IBMs. Though those moments were very brief, she still remembers those encounters semi-vividly; with the way they appeared to her, it’s rather hard for her to forget about them.

She settles on explaining it by, “The IBM that appeared during my first death was really tall. If I remember correctly, I think it’s even taller than Tanaka’s.” She thought back on the second one, admitting, “I didn’t get much of a good look at the other one because it was night time when it showed up, but I don’t think that it reaches even close to the first one’s height.”

“Interesting,” Satou notes. “I haven’t heard of any cases where IBMs that vary in traits despite having the same user.” He says thoughtfully, “Ah, I’m not saying that it’s impossible, but there’s yet to be a confirmed record about a case like that.”

“You mean something like that happening to IBMs is unusual?”

He shrugs his shoulders and shakes his head once more. “As far as I know, it is very unusual. Even though Tanaka and I have summoned our IBMs more than a few times already, there weren’t any big, if there were at all, differences each time they appeared.”

“I guess that makes sense.” She surmises.

“Anyways,” Satou takes ahold of the conversation’s flow once more, asking her, “Do you think you can try summoning it?”

“H..huh?”

“Summon it?” Hajime echoes, just as bewildered as his friend.

“Come on now.” He encourages. “You certainly won’t know if you can’t unless you try, right?”

Her gaze falls to the floor. “I…I don’t know if I can. I mean, I’m not exactly sure how it works.”

“In that case, then maybe some visualization will help.” Upon seeing her even more puzzled look, he rectifies what he said and adds, “Just imagine your IBM forming.”

As if she finally understands what he meant by that, she sends him a determined nod. “Okay, I’ll try.” She thinks back on the black mass, remembering how it formed and solidified to a recognizable shape; she tries to understand how Tanaka did it, and she tries to go with what Satou had suggested her to do.

A decently-sized mass of unorganized black particles begins to form around her back.

Satou exclaims with a laugh, “Now you’re getting somewhere!”

Something more solid begins to form from among the black mass. The torso grows more defined in its shape. One part in particular slowly becomes more recognizable as the top part of a head. A row of what are undeniably human teeth protrude from below the top of its mouth.

Before the potential IBM’s jaw even manages form, those black particles start to fizzle out. Shortly after, the forming black mass that was once there quickly fades away to nothing.

Chiaki turns around just in time to see the last of those black particles completely disappear from her view. She lets out a disheartened noise once it became clear that her IBM isn’t going to be summoned any time soon.

Satou consolingly pats her back. His voice remains soft and soothing as he tells her, "It's okay. I’m sure you'll get it next time." He conveniently ignores the boy’s mortified look.

“You really think so?” She asks him with a disbelieving look.

“I know so.” He corrects her with a nod and a smile. “Even Tanaka wasn’t able to get it quite right during his first time; I even remembered the black matter he managed to summon were even smaller.” The old man gestures a hand towards the other ajin and his idle IBM, adding, “But look at him now. I’d definitely say he’s going pretty good compared to how he used to be.”

Tanaka’s face goes red for a moment there. He turns himself away from their view, muttering a few things in an embarrassed tone.

“Thanks, Mr. Satou.” A small, relieved smile forms on her face.

* * *

After that single attempt, Satou didn’t ask her to try doing it again. He told her that it’s because most ajins can only summon their IBMs once or twice a day on average. It’s true with Tanaka’s, so he figured it’s safe for him to assume it’d work the same with hers.

With that said and done, the day came to an end. The skies already went dark an hour ago.

Come to think of it, Satou doesn’t sleep like everyone else does. Instead, he might’ve stayed up all night whenever he can; officially, he says it’s so that he can keep an eye out for everyone while they sleep.

Hajime, however, thinks that he’s just using it as an excuse to stay up all night playing video games. At one point when no one was listening, he muttered, _“I swear, he’s a lot worse than how you were back then, and he’s supposed to be a grown-ass man.”_

To be fair, Satou does have a good excuse for staying up all night, since he can just reset himself whenever he feels tired, but the idea of doing that sounded uncomfortable to Chiaki. She decided not to press about that topic any further.

It’s already late, at least around nine PM according to the broadcasted time check. Hajime has already tucked in for the night, and she figures she should do the same thing.

But, for some reason, she just can’t feel it in her.

And so, all three ajins remain awake during that late hour. Satou’s gone off to somewhere in the warehouse; he mentioned something about organizing a few things. Again, that leaves them with three people in the same room. With one of them asleep nearby, it leaves the two up and about.

Well, almost. One of them yawns a bit too loudly.

Tanaka rubs the side of his eye. He crouches down on the floor, preparing his futon. As he’s about to let himself drop on top of it, he hears someone call out to him.

“Hey, Tanaka.”

Though a bit cranky from getting interrupted, he reminds himself that’s the adult in this. He turns to the newbie, a single eye focused on her. “What is it?”

She thinks over the words she’s about to say. She tells him, “I just want to say, I’m sorry for getting scared of your IBM back there. That was very silly of me.”

“It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.” He huffs, absentmindedly running his fingers through the side of his head. He’s almost done with setting his bed up when he hears her call out to him again.

“One last thing.”

He sighs and faces back to her. He doesn’t say anything this time, thinking it’d be easier if he lets her speak first.

“I also want to thank you.” She says. “For everything so far.”

That’s not what he expected at all; there’s too much sincerity in that tone. Unsure what to make of it, he tiredly waves it off. “Mr. Satou’s the one who did all the work, you know. He’s the one you should thank.”

She shakes her head, respectfully disagreeing with him. “It doesn’t mean you didn’t do anything, though. I know that I haven’t been much of a help to you two, but, you still went along anyway.”

“Huh, if you say so.” Tanaka’s eyes drooped some more. He decides he no longer cares and plops himself down on his futon just like that. Before he lets himself drift off, he sternly tells her, “You should get yourself to sleep too.”

In hindsight, it would’ve been a lot more effective if his voice isn’t muffled by the pillow.

Then again, it might’ve worked anyway, since he doesn’t hear her pester him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Before we start off, I'll say that I've completely shifted this fic from past tense to present tense; I've already edited the previous chapters to fit in with this, so, RIP my hands. I thought that present tense would flow a little better, so there you go.


	11. Disc

_Thud._

Hajime has collapsed in a stiff heap for around, maybe the sixth or seventh time today.

They’ve been going at this for at least more than an hour now. From what they’ve discovered so far, their voices last for the following duration: four to ten seconds for Chiaki, around five to eight minutes or so for Tanaka, and ten minutes for Satou, who had the longest at the moment.

They’ve yet to try having all three of them shout at the human at the same time.

 _‘I wonder,’_ The old man muses, _‘Does our age or rather, how long we’ve been as an ajin factor how much it affects our paralyzing voice?’_ After giving it some consideration, he shakes his head at the notion. _‘No, that can’t be it.’_

Tanaka notices him acting a bit weird and he asks, “Is there anything wrong?”

Hearing his comrade’s concern, he turns to him and replies, “Oh, it’s nothing. I was just thinking of a few things.”

“If you say so.” He remains unconvinced but decides to drop the topic.

After a few minutes have passed, Hajime gasps and gets himself up on his feet. He pats his hands down all over his pants, dusting them off. He shoots a dirty look towards the old man. While he stands by the fact that getting paralyzed by their scream doesn’t hurt at all, it didn’t mean that it wasn’t annoying to deal with.

Said old man doesn’t look all that bothered by that. He keeps his friendly smile and approaches him. “Put this on, Hinata. There’s something I’d like to try.” He holds his palm out, presenting a pair of earplugs.

Hajime furrows his brows at seeing them, before he takes both items and wastes no time plugging them in his ears.

“Now, if you don’t mind?” Satou gestures a hand towards them.

That’s all the prompting he needs. A more concentrated, powerful _shout_ bursts from Tanaka’s throat.

Although the ajin’s voice is directed towards him, Hajime’s body doesn’t tense up and stiffen like it usually would’ve had. Instead, he stays still and stands by his ground. His fists remain tightly clenched, but other than that, he looks no worse for wear.

The remainder of those minutes goes by quickly.

Satou tilts his body to the side, scrutinizing the boy a bit closer. If his eyes weren’t closed all the time, it might’ve looked like he’s squinting. He notes his observations out loud, “It looks like plugging the ears are a lot more helpful in blocking out the voice’s effect, compared to just using the helmet.” He chuckles. “It’s too bad those guys at the government doesn’t know anything about this.”

“I guess it does.” He reluctantly agrees with the old man.

Hajime keeps the earplugs on. He stays right where he is, bracing himself for the next ajin to come to shout at him.

The rest of their tests all end in the same way.

* * *

The day quickly passes over again.

From a far-off corner in this room, the almost muted noises of 8-bit music and laser sound effects can be heard; it isn’t loud enough to wake either Hajime or Tanaka, both of whom fell asleep around five minutes ago.

Those noises didn’t disturb her, but even so, Chiaki can’t bring herself to sleep. Now that peace has uneasily settled into their lives once more, she can’t help but think about some people in her old life.

She doesn’t know how her parents must be feeling right now, now that they knew of what she really is. If she takes those snippets from the news she watched a day ago, definitely far from good at all. Something in her aches at that thought.

Moving on from her parents, she wonders where Izuru is now, and how he’s doing. Her heart sinks, realizing that he might’ve already known about what happened to her; it’s impossible to miss out on the news that spread days ago.

What’d happen if they see each other again?

The more rational part of her reminded her that it’s probably for the best if it doesn’t come to that. There’s no need to drag him into this conflict.

She sits up, dragging herself out of the futon. Her hand rubs over at her eyes as she lets out a soft yawn. The room is almost pitch black; the only source of light here is the brightness coming from the console’s screen, the same one where Satou’s killing time as well as generated 8-bit aliens with.

With careful steps, she treads over to where the brightness is. She reaches close; she hesitates for a second or so, questioning to herself if she’d end up disturbing him and if she’d come across as rude for dropping in just like that.

As she mulls over her internal dilemma, she lets herself sit on the cold floor, close enough to let her watch him shoot more of the simplistic aliens onscreen. Nostalgia spikes within her, knowing that the game he’s playing is one of her favorites to play while growing up.

Wordlessly, her finger traces on her hair, the same spot where her Gala Omega hairpin used to be. She breathes out, knowing that she lost it on that incident with the bus.

She almost jumps back when she hears the old man’s gentle voice asking her, “You can’t sleep?” He doesn’t turn his head around, retaining his focus on the entertainment system’s screen.

“I think so,” Chiaki admits. “It’s nothing too bad, really. It’s just that there are a lot of things I’ve been thinking about lately.”

The bright screen illuminates his face enough in the dark. “Is that so?” He raises a brow.

She nods. “Yeah, that’s all, really.”

He softly hums in thought. “Alright, if that’s all there is to it.”

The old ajin goes back to his game, fingers deftly pressing over the buttons are more in-game aliens are shot down by his ship. It didn’t take long for the loud bang to come in, signaling his ship’s destruction. “Aw, I died again.” Despite what he just said, he lets out a chuckle at that morbid joke.

She might’ve found it a little funny too; that is if she forgot about the kind of situation they’re all in. She’s caught off-guard when she sees him crouch down and plug a second controller into the console.

Satou hands it over to her, and before she can say anything else, tells her, “Go on.” He pats a hand right by his side.

Graciously taking it in her hands, she comes over to his side, letting herself sit as comfortably as she can. Now that she has a better look, her eyes study the game’s graphics; it’s just like how she remembered it, only on a bigger screen. “I haven’t played this in a while.” She wistfully remarks.

“Well then,” He flashes her with a smirk as the game starts. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Her fingers lightly touch over the buttons in preparation. “You’re on.” She returns an equally as playful smirk towards him.

Neither of them realizes how much time has passed; not until they heard someone, most likely Hajime, yawn.

* * *

It's almost hard to believe they've been here for almost three weeks now. One moment, they were running for their lives, completely unsure of what might happen the next hour, and the next thing they knew, they’ve been generously taken in by a duo of older, more experienced ajins.

The news surrounding the fourth ajin’s case hasn’t died down even a little bit during those times, which is pretty weird; no one has seen her since the initial incident, so they should’ve run out of coverage at this point. They’ve been milking the case for some time now.

It infuriated Hajime a lot whenever he sees those pop up on TV; he’d say something under his breath whenever the current news anchor or reporter repeats the same, minimal information all over again. He doesn’t check out the web for the news either, because the situation there is a lot worse than on TV.

Another thing is, Chiaki still hasn’t made much progress in summoning her IBM. In most attempts, she’d only manage to summon its torso before it disintegrates after a few seconds. The most success she had so far is summoning it in full body, but it appeared translucent and disappeared shortly after.

Satou commented that it’s a bit unusual but other than that, he comfortingly patted her back and told her that she’d get it in no time.

They’re done with her latest attempt an hour ago. At the moment, Hajime is keeping Tanaka occupied with a couple of personal things, so it’s just her and Satou here inside this part of the warehouse.

Satou’s stance is remarkably straight, much like the one a professional or a disciplined soldier might exhibit. A pistol rests in his right hand; he puts out a relaxed smile on his face as he pulls the trigger.

_Bang!_

Another shot hits its mark, this time, landing in the shooting target’s chest.

Since he’d invited her over a few minutes ago, Chiaki has been observing the older ajin’s shooting skills. It’s nothing like the ones she’s seen in games; if anything, none of them compares close to this. It’s almost like…

“Mr. Satou, you’re really good at this.” She comments, awe in her eyes and voice as she sees another shot hit the target. “If I didn’t know any better, I might’ve thought you used to be a pro competitive shooter, or maybe even a soldier.”

The old man goes quiet for a split moment or so. Those passed, and he nonchalantly shrugs. “Was it that obvious?”

“Wait, you were actually one before?” Upon realizing how vague she sounded, she adds, “A pro competitive shooter or a soldier, I mean.”

“I sure was.” He answers. He completely ignores the fact he didn’t exactly answer it, as well as ignoring the somewhat disappointed look she gives him for that.

He pulls the trigger once more, and the bullet passes through the side of the target’s head, barely missing the outline.

Satou presses his lips together. Turning to the youngster, he presents the revolver to her. "Would you like to try holding it?" If he wanted to, he could easily put it in her palm.

Chiaki almost backs away in reflex, protesting, "Wait, Mr. Satou, I can't hold a gun, no, wait, I think I shouldn't hold a gun." She shakes her head and she pushes the pistol back to him. ”I mean, I don’t have a license, so wouldn’t it be illegal?"

The old man strokes his chin with two fingers. "When you think about it, that’d certainly be the case for humans. But then again, according to the law, the ajins don't have any rights whatsoever."

She hears him mention their lack of rights, causing her to go uncomfortably quiet at the thought.

The older ajin takes her silence as an answer, and so he adds, "In that case, the law doesn't fully apply to us in the same way, then, don’t you think so?" Because of the way he emphasized it, what he said ended up sounding more like a statement than a question.

"But..."

"Come on now,” He insists, putting his hand over hers while at the same time, gently prying her palm open. “You've got to be curious about what it feels like to hold a real one, right? Even a little bit?" As he says that, he puts the pistol by its handle on top of her half-opened palm.

She glances at his encouraging face, then glances down at the pistol that lays in her cupped hand.

The rest of her arguments died down in her. “I guess I was curious before, but,” She sighs, reluctantly closing her handle around its handle. “You have a point. Maybe I’ll have to learn how to use this someday.” The feeling of cold metal against her skin is so alien, but she tries not to make her discomfort too obvious.

She feels his hand ruffle her hair.

“I’m glad you got what I mean.” He says while stepping back a little bit to study her stance better.

While not bad, he can see it’s modeled after a scene in a video game, which isn’t as accurate. His hands go over her, modifying her stance somewhat; body bent slightly forward from the hips, arms fully extended, knees flexed but not bent, and keeping the toes parallel.

He slightly steps back again, studying her now-modified stance once more. After he deems it good enough, he gives her an encouraging smile. “You’ll have to remember this.”

She turns her head slightly to face him, nodding in affirmation. “I will.”

Her eyes lock on the shooting target. Her breathing grows shaky; the fact that she’s holding a gun, a real gun with actual bullets, completely unlike the plastic ones on the game cabinets, sinks deeply in her. _‘It’s okay. It might be a real gun, but I’m not shooting a real person.’_ She reminds herself, trying to keep herself as outwardly calm as possible.

She pulls the trigger.

 _Bang!_

A quiet yelp escapes her, making her almost drop the gun after feeling its recoil; her fingers tightly hold onto it, not wanting to break it by accident.

The bullet creates a small hole in the red circle, right inside the head’s outline.

Satou stares at the shooting target. If his eyes aren’t perpetually shut, he might’ve blinked once or twice. A beaming smile breaks over his lips. He pats down her head. “Nice shot, Nanami. This is your first time shooting like this, right?”

Receiving praise like this has never felt so weird. Her stance relaxes. “Uh, thanks. And I think so, if the shooting games at arcades don’t count.”

He shakes his head. “In that case, you did a lot better than I expected a newbie would.” Stretching his limbs, he decides, “I think it’s time we move on to a live target.”

Hearing the word ‘live target’ in that sentence gave off the wrong impression to her. Assuming that it’d mean using him as the shooting target this time around, she argues, “Mr. Satou, I know that you’ll turn out fine, but I can’t just shoot you like that!”

“Hm, that sounds fair.” He says, almost like he’s taking what she said into consideration. “It’s getting harder to find clothes my size these days.”

_‘That’s not really what I was worried about.’_

He lets out a laugh. “It’s a good thing I have someone for that, then.” Not even a second after he said that, black particles form and gather around his back.

Having seen it happen with Tanaka before, she takes a step back. Her heart thumps faster, both in uncertainty and anticipation. She hasn’t seen Satou’s IBM, at least, not until it slowly forms right now.

The mass of black particles materializes into a denser, more recognizable form. The resulting IBM is tall, towering over Satou much like Tanaka’s had. Its build is also a bit similar to Tanaka’s, but at the same time, Satou’s overall felt bigger and a bit more imposing. Unlike Tanaka’s IBM, which had a more human-like head, the head of Satou’s IBM is longer and flatter, kind of like a stylized, cartoonish snake. Instead of five fingers, it has six.

“Um…” Chiaki is at a complete loss of words.

Satou assumes that her concerns are the same, so he explains, "It'll be alright. Tubbs here can take on everything you'll throw at him. The material all IBMs are made of can't be destroyed by anything humans dish out on them." To prove his point, he smacks the back of his hand against the IBM’s chest. It didn’t flinch in the slightest.

He sees that she looks utterly unconvinced by that. He shrugs, knowing to himself he’s got a hard audience and takes a knife out of his pocket. He waits for a few seconds, letting her see the sharp tool, and then stabs it towards his IBM’s side.

Not even a single dent is made on the nonplussed IBM. He takes the knife and shows her the result; the knife is completely bent all over. “Enough proof for you, I hope.”

Seeing that he’s right, Chiaki shifts back to the stance Satou told her to remember. The feeling of metal in her hands still makes her uneasy. Her eyes go over the older ajin’s IBM; she aims the gun towards it and, after a second passes, pulls the trigger.

_Bang!_

Just like what Satou told her, the bullet harmlessly presses on top of the IBM’s throat. It didn’t appear to be bothered at all. It reaches out for the bullet and pulls it off with two fingers, dropping it to the ground with a soft clank.

The old man briefly looks over his IBM’s state, and proceeds to instruct the younger ajin, “Alright, now keep shooting at it until you run out of bullets.”

As if on cue, the IBM begins to rush out of its spot, running over the place and even scaling over the walls.

As soon as she breaks out of her brief shock at seeing the IBM move so suddenly, she makes herself focus again and starts shooting at it.

By the time all bullets were spent, there were several misses because of the IBM’s inhuman speed; still, there were also plenty of shots that managed to land on it, mostly on the chest, abdomen, thighs, and shoulders. All in all, not so bad when someone considers the moving target.

“You got some serious potential there.” He says, stroking the back of her head. “I can’t wait to see how you’d turn out when you take this more seriously.”

Though he retains his smile on the outside, he has a completely different reflection in his head. _‘It’s too bad you’re still a bit too soft for my liking, Nanami. But that’s alright; I can easily arrange something for that.’_

This was turning out to be a lot better than expected.

* * *

It’s late in the evening. Again, Chiaki is unable to sleep and so, decided to try and pass the night by playing some games.

Those plans are put on hold when Satou sees her get up from her futon and softly asks, “Nanami, will it be alright if I ask for some of your time?”

She shrugs. “I don’t mind.” Her head turns back to glance over the sleeping duo. “Should I wake Hajime and Tanaka up?”

He shakes his head. “That won’t be necessary. It’s something that only you need to know.”

The old man didn’t give her much time to comprehend what just said. Even though the room is almost pitch black, he manages to hold her by the wrist, leading her to a more illuminated area in the warehouse, and a bit further from where Hajime and Tanaka were.

A small lamp that’s placed on top of a table is the only source of light in there; there are also a couple of things on the table aside from the lamp, including a bunch of paper bags, a box of DVDs, a DVD player, and a fairly average-sized TV screen.

“Go on,” Satou pulls the chair out and gestures his hand towards it. “Take a seat.”

She does as she’s told. Her eyes take those items in and she asks, "Mr. Satou, what's with these stuff?"

The old man remains standing. He leans slightly forward at her side, making sure that their faces are at the same level. “Before I answer that, can you tell me one thing?” Upon seeing her nod, he proceeds with his next question. “How do you feel about humans?”

The sudden question makes her pause. She recounts her last encounters with them. She frowns; aside from her friend, none of them ended positively.

And yet, she answers, “I don’t want to hurt anyone. Even if some humans did end up harming me or Hajime before, I,” She sighs. “It won’t be fair if I lump them all in the same category, right?”

Satou raises a brow at her answer. He breathes out, standing himself straight and nodding once. “I see. Well, remember when I said that I’d tell you about the truth someday?”

She nods. “Yeah, I remember you did.”

He takes one of the discs in the box. “I figured that showing you would get my point better.” Without any warning, he then places it inside the DVD player. Soon, the footage plays in front of them.

At first, the screen is black. The footage’s resolution is rather low, a sign that it’s captured via video camera, a decent one, but a video camera nonetheless. And then, light, or rather, the closest thing to one comes in the video.

The next thing she saw sent shivers in her body.

On-screen, the place looked like a lab room of some sort, just like the ones she’d often see in games like Outlast or Resident Evil. Unlike the labs in those games, this one was a lot cleaner, hinting that it’s maintained well at that time.

It also showed a team of surgeons, poking and prodding on a person strapped to a chair; they were wrapped from head to toe in bandages; the only skin shown was their nose. Strands of hair poked out from behind that person’s head.

If she looks closer, she’d see the numbers ‘002’ printed on their blindfold.

“Mr. Satou, is...” She swallows, unable to look away. “Is that…?”

He doesn’t answer.

One of the surgeons picked a rifle up, pointed it the struggling person—Tanaka, she now realizes—and pulled the trigger.

Tanaka’s screams in the footage were quiet as the bullet passed through his skull. His body went still for a moment, only for him to jerk back awake and struggle even more.

Her breath hitches when she sees the surgeon pointed the gun to him once again, this time at his chest, and pulled the trigger once more.

Again and again, not even a minute apart from each death, it’s repeated. Aside from the senseless cruelty shown, there is one more thing she can’t ignore; there were no black particles that showed up whenever Tanaka is killed and reset in the footage, and yet...

She knows they’re there. She can feel them; the ones in her body tingle with the invisible black matter that wasn’t seen in the footage.

The old man places a hand on her shoulder. "You can tell the footage is real. It's because even though video cameras can't capture the particles in the footage, you'll feel the ones within your own body resonate with them. That’s why only the ajin can tell the difference between genuine and fake testing footages."

The footage ends in black. It was only around three minutes and fifty-four seconds long, but it felt so much longer than that.

Satou opens the DVD player. Wordlessly, he plucks the disc out with two fingers, putting it back in its case and back inside the box. His hand reaches for another disc and puts it in the DVD player.

Another footage plays.

It starts the same way as the first one did, only this time, it didn’t take place in a lab. Instead, it looked like it was recorded in a different facility. This footage then showed a fancy, branded car driving far over the speed limit. There’s someone inside.

She looks closer and is unable to contain the gasp when she sees their body is covered in bandages and a brief glimpse of the numbers ‘002’ over the blindfold.

The car crashed over the walls, wrecking half of it. Tanaka in the footage was sticking out of the car’s window, completely still.

The same thing is done again, only with a different car and that one crashes to another car. This time, Tanaka was bumped to the front, and his neck was bent.

Chiaki has never felt so sick in her stomach before. _‘First, they’ve used him as a shooting target and now, they’re using him as a living crash test dummy.’_

“This is what Japan’s government does to the ajins they claim to ‘protect’ under their ‘care’,” Satou tells her, breaking the silence that was made moments ago. He made sure to emphasize two certain words under quotations. “We’re used as their lab rats. We’re even loaned out to all sorts of corporations, including pharmacies, car companies, arms industries; you name it, leaving them with loads of cash.”

And just like that, the footage ends. The second footage isn’t any longer than the first one, and yet it felt just as long and inhumane.

Satou takes that disc out, replacing it with another disc from the box. The first and second footage was already terrifying enough, but they pale compared to the next one he shows her.

Chiaki reflexively covers her mouth with a hand, feeling the bile rising from her throat while her eyes remain stuck on the screen. A flurry of all sorts of negative emotions threatens to overwhelm her as she watches a bomb gets dropped on poor, struggling Tanaka, unable to escape. Even though it’s nothing compared to the real thing, the bomb’s roar in the footage deafens her ears.

What happened to Tanaka in the footage before he regenerated made her empty the contents of her stomach in one of the paper bags on the table.

She sees the same test is repeated a few more times before it cuts to black, ending it at last. The third footage was shorter compared to the first two, lasting at least one minute and ten seconds.

Not even a minute after that, the older ajin showed her more footage that detailed more of the experiments that Tanaka went through, each one just as awful and terrifying as the last. She never imagined how humans can be capable of doing something so despicable in real life.

By the time he pulled out the last disc, she breaks down.

Her breathing is shallow. "It's horrible..." Her body shakes, voice broken. "It's so horrible. He didn’t do anything to deserve any of that." Her hands clench until her knuckles turn white.

He faces her once again, leaning down so that they meet face-to-face. "Do you truly understand the situation all ajins are in now, Nanami?"

A shaken nod is all he receives as an answer.

While he keeps his right hand on her shoulder, he uses his free hand to reach out and turn the DVD player off. “Tomorrow,” He faces her with a grimly serious expression. “I’ll leak some of these footages to the internet.” He declares.

“Wh…What?”

He hears the hesitance in her voice. "We have to educate the human masses about this. Don't you want justice for Tanaka? If we don’t put those footages out there, no one will know about how much he suffered for ten years."

“I…” Chiaki cuts herself off, swallowing the rest of her words. She closes her eyes and nods. “I think I get it now. What they’ve done to him is horrible. We shouldn’t keep quiet about that.”

He stands himself straight. His serious expression remains, but his voice isn’t as urgent as it’d been moments ago. “I’m glad you can understand where we’re coming from. Now that I’ve shown you the truth, is there anything else you want to know?”

“I have one more question to ask you.” As she said that, she wonders if the old man will get tired of her constant questions someday. Upon seeing him nod, she continues, “There were three ajins, four including me, in Japan at this time. You got Tanaka out of there, but what happened to the first and third?” Her fingers clench; she can’t bear the thought of them suffering as Tanaka had.

The older ajin purses his lips. “Japan’s government hasn’t told anyone yet about this; truth is, the first Japanese ajin is somewhere in the United States. I’m afraid there’s nothing much we can do for them, unless if we steal a private jet somehow.” He grips the brim of his hat, shaking his head. “But then again, you know how the United States’ government is like.”

“Oh…” Her gaze turns down, disheartened.

He continues, “As for the third one, I don’t think I know what happened to them. The facility that held them burned down. Allegedly, it’s because of faulty wiring, but I doubt that’s what happened. Maybe they escaped, maybe they didn’t.” He shrugs his shoulders.

Upon hearing the third ajin’s case, she raises her head, asking him with a little bit of hope in her voice, “Do you think we can save them too someday?”

A chuckle escapes the old man’s lips. “Of course,” He ruffles her hair. “I know you can.”

* * *

Shortly after that pep talk, Satou gently sets the now heavily-asleep Chiaki down her futon; it wasn’t the first time he’s done this, as it’d often happen during their late-night video game sessions.

He sees the youngster shift somewhat. After tucking her in, his steps are quick but soft as he leaves her with the sleeping Tanaka and Hajime.

The old man finds a spot that’s far enough from the trio. He looks over the area. Even though his eyes are shut as always, he moves his head around as if he’s searching for something. A medium-sized rectangular object to be exact that’s sitting at the corner catches his attention; that’s exactly what he’s looking for and he walks towards it.

That object is a suitcase.

He bends his body over to grab it. With that done, he sets himself down on the same table and chair he had used for that talk with Chiaki.

He gently sets the suitcase down on the table. His fingers unlatches the locks at the side, opening it, and takes the item out.

The tranquilizer gun rests easily in his hands.

While his fingers go over at the weapon, mostly to check its condition, Satou thinks back on what Chiaki had told him, after he showed her those videos.

He knows he’s going to have a long talk with Tanaka about that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This chapter was pretty interesting for me to write, especially when it comes to contrasting Chiaki with Kei. I figured that compared to him, she's a lot more trusting and so, a lot more susceptible to being manipulated, especially with how Satou's buttering her up until this point.
> 
> EDIT: I decided to take the part with Junko out since I thought it wouldn't make sense in the long run.


	12. Recoil

_“Kouji. It’s time to get up.”_

_He presses his face deeper into his pillow, loudly groaning, “Five more minutes, Mom…”_

_She clicks her tongue, tutting at him. “Young man, you’re going to be late on your first day if you keep this up.” Her footsteps grow louder and closer to him. A hand grips over his blanket, pulling it slightly away. ”You better get up right now, Kouj…”_

_His mother’s calls grow more and more muffled by each second. Before he knew it, her voice is rapidly fading away from his hearing._

_“Kouji…”_

A deeper, but equally as soothing voice calls out to him.

“…Tanaka.”

He groans, shifting his body some more; he mumbles something inaudible in his sleep. He shuts his eyes harder, feeling the soft slapping against his cheek persist some more. In response to that, his arm shoots out, grabbing the covers and pulling it over his head.

His sleep turns peaceful once more. At least, it only did just for a few seconds or so before the covers are pulled off of him.

He feels the same, soft slapping against his cheek again. This time, it’s a little bit faster.

“Come on.” The same voice calls out to him again, “Wake up, Tanaka…”

The constant shaking finally stirs him awake.

Tanaka grunts, blearily opening a single eye; he’s greeted with the sight of a certain old man crouching down to his level. He sits himself up on his futon, forcefully peeling both eyes open, and yawns. “Mr. Satou?” He rubs one eye while the other closes for a second. “Don’t you think it’s too early?” He yawns again.

Satou softly chuckles. “That’s exactly why I woke you up right now.” Shortly after saying that, he looks around like he’s checking if the other two might be listening in, though Tanaka highly doubts that they’d be able to do that at this time. Once he sees that the two youngsters are still heavily asleep, he then adds in a softer voice, “There’s something we need to talk about. Just the two of us, Tanaka.” His gaze sharpens at the end.

Realizing the urgency in the old man’s voice, he feels as if any remaining fatigue he had only moments ago immediately leaves him. He just nods in reply, stretching his limbs as he gets himself up on both feet.

He gestures him with a beckoning hand, leading him to somewhere in the warehouse that’s far enough from the still-asleep duo.

The spot the old man chose is a bit further than what Tanaka’s used to. It doesn’t help that the only source of light they’ve got is from a lamp that’s a bit further than where they are.

Tanaka lets himself sit on a barrel as comfortably as he can. “Okay, so,” He shifts in his seat a bit before asking, “What is it that you need me to talk about?”

The old man has also seated himself on another barrel, right in front of him. He leans his body forward, creasing his eyebrows and clasping his hands together. He has an unusually serious look on his face. He tells him, “It’s about Nanami.”

He goes quiet for a moment or so, using that time to let his comrade’s words truly sink in. Once he does, he feels a bit dumb for asking, “Oh, uh, what about her?”

Satou replies, “It’s nothing much. I asked her about what she thought of humans a few nights ago. Do you want to know what she told me?”

Tanaka subconsciously feels all of his muscles stiffen when he hears him mention that. He exhales, forcing himself to relax even a little bit, and briefly nods.

Satou continues, “She told me that she doesn’t want to hurt anyone,” He shakes his hand off. “That even though there were already quite a few humans who’ve harmed her and Hinata, she thought that ‘it isn’t fair to lump all of them in the same category’.”

It might’ve been just him, but it feels like something large blocked his throat. He grunts, focusing his eyes on the ground.

“After that, I showed her some of the recorded footage from that time you were held in custody.” He adjusts his cap a bit, sighing some more. “She agrees that what they’ve done to you was horrible, but at the same time, I don’t think her stance on humans as a whole has changed that much.”

“I guess it’s not that surprising.” Tanaka surmises with a slight frown. “Hinata’s more or less the living proof of what she believes in.”

The old man nods. "That’s what I’ve felt as well. That alone wouldn’t have been so bad, but then I’ve thought that she also hesitates too often and doesn't have the same conviction as you.” He leans himself back; his tone sounds resigned as he says, “She's too soft, Tanaka. If things carried on the same way, she'd be more of a liability to our cause."

Upon hearing that, he lifts his face and asks, “What do you think you should do, then?”

Satou smirks, and then he softly chuckles. "I’m glad you asked. It’s simple, really.”

Without any warning, the older ajin stands from the barrel and walks towards him. Tanaka hears him rummage through something; he can’t see or exactly make out what the old man was looking for due to the area’s poor lighting.

The old man gets close enough to him, having found the item he was looking for. He tells him, ”Nanami needs to open her eyes to humanity's cruelty against us." At the end of that, he puts something in Tanaka’s hands.

Tanaka looks down to see exactly what the older ajin had handed over to him. He almost jumps back up in shock when realizes what the item was. He opens his mouth, vacantly staring back at the tranquilizer gun that nestled comfortably within his hands. “But, Mr. Satou, I thought that...”

What’s left of his small protest fades away as he feels the old man intensively glancing at him from aside. His fingers fidget with the tranquilizer gun, knowing all too well of what the old man was implying to him.

Satou puts a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sure," He leans in closer and whispers into his ear, "You know you'd do the right thing, won’t you, Tanaka?"

Tanaka breathes out. A drop of cold sweat is running down by the side of his head. His index finger absentmindedly feels through the tranquilizer gun’s trigger.

* * *

Satou hums softly while tapping his fingers all over the handheld’s buttons. The character he’s controlling navigates smoothly through the level, at least at first. He frowns a bit after he sees his character fall off the bottomless pit once more, and is shortly followed by the game over theme that lasted for at least ten seconds.

His finger press over one of the buttons and starts the game anew.

Tanaka’s off in some corner of the base, probably thinking about a few things. Maybe. Satou hasn’t checked on him since about two hours ago.

The game’s 8-bit music plays once more. Although he retained most of his attention towards the screen, he hears some footsteps nearby. Since he’s busy with something more important at the moment, he asks without turning his head around to see them, “You two slept well?”

A yawn comes out of Hajime before he mouths out, “I think so.” Despite what he said, he still rubs one of his eyes and yawns again.

Chiaki doesn't reply. A thing or two is going around her mind lately. She looked around the Internet to see how everyone’s been reacting to the videos Satou leaked days ago; most of the comments those people posted either didn’t take it seriously, thought it was staged, or worse, thought it was kind of entertaining. It’s so disappointing, but he told her he expected those kinds of responses.

 _“That’s why we’re doing this. We’re going to change the way things are for all Japanese ajins, together.”_ is what Satou encouragingly told her that time.

The boy notices her acting a bit off and unintentionally snaps her out of her thoughts, asking, “Is there something wrong?”

That question catches her off-guard, making her jolt a bit. It takes her a split second to take it in, and she tells him, “It’s nothing. I just stayed up all night again.” It wasn’t exactly truthful, but it’s not really a lie either.

Satou subtly smirks. He figures in that small moment, it was the perfect time to strike; he puts his handheld away into a pocket. He approaches the two teenagers, seamlessly inviting himself into their conversation. “You know, I’ve noticed that you’ve been down a lot lately.”

As expected, she denies it. “It’s not that bad.”

Hajime suspiciously stares at him.

Satou had a feeling that the boy knew he might’ve had an ulterior motive for asking that. He’d commend him for being a smart kid some other time. Still, he didn't let either of the two get their next words.

”I know something that’d cheer you up. I was about to drop by the game store a few streets away to check out some of this month’s new releases, but then, I’ve been thinking,” He turns his face to her level and directly addresses her, “Perhaps you’d like to tag along too?”

Upon hearing that, Chiaki goes quiet. Her mind processes over his words, all while thinking about how everything about that feels so sudden. It’s almost overwhelming if she’s being honest.

Hajime, on the other hand, puts his own two cents into that suggestion. “No offense,” Whether he realizes it or not, he steps forward a bit as he questions, “But, is that even a good idea?”

He continues, ”Come on now, Hinata, it won’t be so bad if it’s just for today. Besides, you and Tanaka went out to buy groceries a week ago, and nothing happened to you two, right?”

Hajime admits, “That’s true, but that’s also a completely different thing. No one has seen Tanaka for over a decade, so it’d be a bit harder for people to recognize him compared to Chiaki.”

The old man raises a brow, lips curled downwards. “Are you saying that you’d rather keep your friend cooped up in here?”

His arms shake a bit at that assumption. “That’s not what I…” He sighs, gaze dropping to the floor. “Look, it’s just that, I don’t know if it’s even safe for her to go out yet. The police or any else from the government might be waiting out there for all we know.”

“I understand your fear, I truly do. But at the same time, it won’t hurt to live a little,” He pauses, letting his words truly sink into the boy’s mind. “After all,” Satou faces him with an unreadable expression. “There’s no point in going about your life if you keep hiding away from the world, especially if you can’t die.”

The air around them is the tensest they’ve had so far. Some seconds pass by, and before Hajime notices it, the old man has gone back to his regular self.

“Still, I think it’s best if we leave it up for her to decide in the end,” Satou concludes, gesturing a hand towards Chiaki. “So, what do you think, Nanami?” He raises a hand, wordlessly telling Hajime not to say anything to influence his friend’s decision.

Hajime opens his mouth to say something, only to begrudgingly shut it. His face softens, looking at his friend.

The old man’s words from earlier made her think about it some more. There are so many terrible people outside; that’s true, but at the same time…

She turns to them and decides, “If it’s really okay, then I think it should be alright. I mean, Mr. Satou has a point. I can’t stay scared and keep hiding here forever.”

“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” Hajime asks.

She nods. “Yeah.”

Satou delightfully clasps his hands. “So it’s decided.” He turns to the boy, addressing him, “Hinata, if you don’t mind? You should go and get Tanaka.”

Deciding to go along with things, for now, Hajime leaves for a bit and comes back, bringing in a confused-looking Tanaka to their impromptu meeting spot.

Satou grabs a crate from nearby. His hands rummage through its contents. “I always thought that this day would come, so I came prepared with a couple of stuff. You two should wait here.”

Once he finds the things he needed, he stands up, handing the extra pants and hoodie over to Chiaki. She takes it in her hands, looking over those articles of clothing a few times.

The three of them move away at first, to let her put those on without any trouble. Once she was done, Satou checks over her. He hums in thought before his fingers gingerly move some of her bangs away. He takes a hair tie out from his pocket, goes over to her hair at the back of her head, and ties it into a short, lower ponytail of some sort.

After that, he takes out a cap, which suspiciously looks a bit similar to the one he always wears, and puts it on top of her head, kind of like a cherry on top or something like that. Add into that, the hoodie and pants ended up looking a bit too big on her.

Satou proudly presents her to the other two. A beaming smile is on his face as he says, “There,” He pats Chiaki on the back for good measure. “Now it’s like you’re a completely different person.”

Hajime is trying to fight back the urge to roll his eyes, with a big emphasis on ‘trying’. If the situation was different, he might’ve found her get-up so ridiculous and overall, unconvincing. “Yeah, sure. I can’t see any differences at all.” He snidely comments, crossing his arms.

Tanaka takes a closer look at her, furrowing his brows and squinting his eyes. He shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t know. That…” He thinks over what he’s about to say for a second admitting to them, ”That doesn’t look very convincing to me.”

In response to that, Satou lowers the cap a bit, covering Chiaki’s eyes a bit more. “Does this work, then?”

Tanaka looks over her once again, humming in thought, before nodding in reply. “Yeah, I think that works a bit better.”

Hajime glances at his friend’s ‘disguise’ from aside. His opinion might sound biased, but he thinks that no one is going to get fooled by that. It’s too bad he’s already been outvoted.

* * *

The game store that Satou mentioned earlier wasn’t that far; they’d get there in at least more than an hour even just by walking there. There are a couple of people who’d pass by them; at least one or two of them stared at them, making Chiaki anxious for a good second or so before they lost interest and went on their way.

Both Hajime and Tanaka had caps on as well. Although it’d be less likely for people to recognize Tanaka, given that as far as they’re aware, he’s still under government ‘care’ and they didn’t update his photo for over a decade, he still put a cap over his head just to make sure.

It’s kind of silly, seeing all four of them wearing caps like it’s a new fashion trend. Maybe that’s why those people were staring. Still, she can’t help but instinctively huddle closer to them. Even with a disguise on, it feels so weird to be outside again.

Once they got there, Hajime and Tanaka stayed and waited outside by the store’s entrance. The store’s door clicks as the Satou and Chiaki get inside.

The middle-aged guy at the cash register opens his mouth, probably to welcome them inside, but then he stops mid-sentence. He closes his mouth, side-eyeing them both with an intense, possibly judging look.

She gulps, wondering if he somehow saw through it. She looks away from him and almost freezes on the spot.

Sensing her distress, the old man turns over to directly look at the guy bothering her, as well as shielding her from the same guy’s scrutinizing look. He politely tells him with a smile, "Please excuse my granddaughter. She's very shy when it comes to new people."

The guy looks over them one more time, before shrugging and going back to his business. It seems like that guy accepted that explanation, at least for now.

With that out of the way, Satou gently leads her to a spot where the newly released games are placed. He glances at her for a moment and tells her, "Go on and pick any games you want." He pats a hand over her head. “And while you’re at it, go ahead and pick as many as you’d like too.”

Her eyes go over the rows and stacks of games again. A little bit of excitement seeps through her voice as she says, “Really? But, won’t that impose on you too much?”

He shakes his head, chuckling. “No, no, it’s alright, really. You’ve been through a lot already, so let me spoil you for now.” He says while using the same hand to ruffle her hair.

She goes over those games, taking their titles in one by one. There are a couple of games that she recognizes and has played before, others that she hasn’t heard of until now. But, there is one particular game that catches her eye.

Her hand reaches to it and takes it out.

“Turnabout Trial 5, huh?” Satou remarks as he looks at the games cover art. “I didn’t expect you to enjoy those kinds of games too.”

“I did say before I enjoy different kinds of games. It’s kind of funny, now that I’m looking back on it. I’ve been waiting for the game’s release back then, but then,” Her fingers tighten a little on the game’s cover. “Well, you know what happened there.”

“Does it still make you uncomfortable?”

“Not really. I’m thinking that maybe it doesn’t bother me that much anymore. I’m just glad that kid is alright the last time I saw them.”

Satou presses his lips in thought. _‘Interesting. I don’t recall any of the news media, either through TV or via the Internet, mentioning anything about a kid during that road incident.’_

He shifts their talk to something easier to digest. “I tried the first Turnabout Trial game once. I ended up putting it down after a minute of playing and haven’t touched it again since. I’m not exactly into visual novels.”

She shrugs. “That sounds fair.”

There are a couple of other games they got; in Satou’s case, he picked out a zombie apocalypse game that seems to be imported from America. Now that they’ve got the games they wanted, Satou goes over to the cashier, handing them over. The same middle-aged guy from earlier goes over their purchases, and after telling them how much they all cost in total, the old man pays for the sizable amount of games they got.

By a normal person’s standards, these would’ve been kind of expensive, but then again, they’re not exactly normal people.

After thanking the cashier, Satou takes Chiaki by the hand. She flutters, looking over his hand, and then at his relaxed face.

He looks back at her and smiles. “Come on, let’s go.”

* * *

Aside from the brief suspicion from the store owner, they walked out of the store without any trouble. At his insistence, Satou’s the one who’s holding the plastic bags.

While the four of them are walking their way back, Tanaka lowers his cap a bit more, closing one eye to check over his IBM. From what he can see in its point of view, it’s still in position, above one of the taller trees around this area. He made sure it’s high enough so that Chiaki won’t be able to notice it.

Judging by the fact she’s caught up in an exciting talk with Satou about the new games they got, she probably won’t notice his IBM anytime soon.

His IBM aims the tranquilizer gun against the fourth ajin. Its finger goes over the trigger. If he’s lucky, he should get it down in two shots.

It prepares to press the trigger. Any second now, and her body will collapse.

Few more seconds pass by. His IBM’s finger goes over the trigger, but never actually presses it down. Tanaka bites inside. _‘Come on, just do it!’_ He wills his IBM to do it even by force.

And yet, it never does. It stays in its spot, keeping the tranquilizer gun in its hands, but it doesn’t attempt to pull the trigger. Frustration seeps through his face.

 _‘Why? Why can’t I bring myself to do it?’_ He remembers the talk he and Satou had earlier that morning. _‘He said that I knew I’d do the right thing. Why can’t I do it, then? What the hell is wrong with me—’_

Two gunshots ring in his ears.

Tanaka gasps. Time goes by far too quickly for all of them.

“Mr. Satou! Hajime!”

A large, irregularly-shaped red circle forms over at Satou’s back, staining his white shirt. The older man drops to the floor with a loud grunt. Around the same time, the games inside the plastic bags make a distinct ‘thud’ as they hit the pavement.

Hajime loudly chokes out with a sharp gasp, a hand clutching at his side. He looks over his hand, and he sees his palm is smeared all over with red. He cries out one more time, collapsing onto his knees in pain.

Chiaki drops down to check over Hajime first, looking over his wound. It didn’t appear to hit anything vital, but he’s still bleeding out so much.

Tanaka is starting to panic on the inside. His thoughts are jumbled all over as he starts to fear for the worst. _‘This wasn’t part of the plan. Did they manage to find us?’_

A single dart narrowly misses the side of Tanaka’s shoulder by mere centimeters. His breathing goes hazy; chills run down his spine when he sees it get lodged onto the floor instead of him. He almost cries out.

Not even a second later, another one shoots out at them. This time, it isn’t heading towards him.

That dart lodges deeply at the back of Chiaki’s neck. Her eyes go wide at the pricking sensation, realizing what it was as drowsiness start to set in her. Her body starts to drop downward.

Now with the three of his companions down, he becomes conflicted on who he should help first. Hajime and Satou are bleeding out on the ground; the boy is in a more dangerous case, as he’s human and if he dies, he won’t come back to life like them. Chiaki is slowly losing consciousness by each second passing by.

A dire realization hits him; if he had a gun, or any lethal weapons for that matter, he would’ve immediately reset them both by now. “Shit.” He curses to himself; the only weapon Satou provided him was the tranquilizer gun, and he can’t use that, not if it’d put their initial plan out to the two.

Chiaki tries to speak out, "Tanaka...please..." Her voice sounds so strained, yet she forces herself to keep talking. "Please get Hajime and Mr. Satou....get them out of here..." Her eyes are dangerously close to drooping.

He looks over at the two, and then back at her. He grits his teeth, yelling, "But what about you?! I can’t leave you behind!”

With what little strength she has left, she shouts, "Just go! Please…” Her head shakes. “You...you can't go back there…you can’t go through it again."

He hears that, feeling something heavy in his throat. He regretfully nods, forcing himself to look away from her, and does what she asked him to do.

By his will, his IBM immediately drops the tranquilizer gun and jumps down from the branches, rushing towards their direction as quickly as it can.

Tanaka goes over to Hajime, deciding to carry him in his arms because he thought he’d be the lighter of the two. He picks the teenaged boy up, minding himself to not jostle his injury too much. He hears the boy groan in pain.

Around the same time, his IBM arrives just in time. It picks Satou up, carrying him like a sack, and joins its user in fleeing the area.

In his hurried escape, Tanaka doesn’t even notice of the IBM with a snakelike head that’s been stalking them since they left the store. It expertly hid among the trees. A rifle is slung over its shoulder and in its hands was a tranquilizer gun.

The IBM puts the weapons away on a branch, coming down from the tree it perched on. It checks over her, using a claw to tear the ponytail holder off, reverting her hair to its more recognizable shape.

It checks over her one more time. It decides that she wouldn’t wake up easily any time soon, and so, it quietly picks the unconscious girl up in its arms, as well as the plastic bags in one hand.

* * *

After almost a month with no leads, they’ve finally received an interesting call. They wasted no time in responding as soon as they could.

Along the way, Tosaki recaps everyone within their shared ride, "A concerned citizen has reported two suspicious persons around ten minutes ago. Based on what they claimed, we concluded that one of them is Hat, and the other is suspected to be Nanami."

It was afternoon by the time they reached their destination; a retail game store in this street, if the information they’re going by is correct. All six of them close the door behind them as they step out of the car.

The four mercenaries spread out. Two of them, Hirasawa and Kuroki, are the first ones to step forward ahead of everyone else. All four of them kept their guards up, in case if they run into the fourth ajin or worse, Hat, within this area.

Izumi stays close by her superior while her eyes scan the area around them. Something from across the corner, right around the far-off alley close to the store, catches her eye. “Tosaki,” She points a finger towards that something. “Look.”

He checks as well in the direction she pointed at, and he immediately calls and gestures for the other four, imploring them to join him and his assistant immediately.

Hirasawa, Manabe, Suzumura, and Kuroki immediately rejoin them. The four of them went on ahead of the two, guns in hand and bodies prepared in case if there’d be a surprise attack that’s waiting for them.

Two plastic bags are nearby, looking as if they were thrown around haphazardly. Kuroki crouches down and picks them up. He inspects the contents, raising a brow as he picks one of them out. “Games? Why are these lying around here?”

As interesting as those two plastic bags might’ve been, those weren’t the reason why they decided to search this area.

At least a few meters away from where the two plastic bags were thrown, a body is lying still, face down. The body appears to be dressed in an oversized hoodie and pants, as well as having a cap on top of their head. One dart is firmly lodged into the back of their neck.

Tosaki nearly thought that this body was Hat, but upon a closer look, he immediately decides that it’s not the case. This person’s build isn’t anything like Hat’s. If anything, they appeared to be smaller and decades younger than him.

Hirasawa steps forward. He crouches down, checking for any signs of movement. Aside from the slow rise and fall of their chest, he doesn’t see any and turns the body over so that everyone can take a closer look at their face. Soon, the other three join him, holding down the body’s limbs as a precaution.

By then, it’s clear to them that this unconscious person is a teenaged girl who is no older than eighteen; the same age as the fourth national ajin.

Tosaki comes closer, inspecting the unconscious teenager’s face from where he stands. He pulls up a picture from his phone, comparing the yearbook picture with the girl before them.

His eyes go between the picture on his phone and the girl in person. Both of them have the soft, round-like facial features and light-colored hair that curled at the ends. There were little, if any at all, differences between the two.

Tosaki decides it’s a complete match. There is one thing that bothers him, however. _‘If she truly was with Hat the whole time, what would drive him to leave her like this? This is far too easy. What is Hat planning?_ ’

“Mr. Tosaki?” Hirasawa calls out to him, breaking him away from his thoughts.

He runs a hand over his forehead, grimacing. _‘Whatever the case it might be, it doesn’t matter as much right now._ ’ He returns his attention to the mercenaries awaiting his next move. He clicks his tongue and flicks his wrist. “Take her away.”

He watches one of the team members, Manabe to be exact, pick her up by the arms, and with Suzumura’s assistance, who is holding her by the legs, they lift her off the ground. Manabe then unceremoniously dumps the fourth ajin into a body bag they prepared.

Chiaki only stirs and shifts a bit inside. She also lets out a soft discomforted noise, no doubt because of the small, enclosed space her body is suddenly been put into. But other than that, she didn’t do anything much to fight back, if she’s even aware of what’s going on.

Tosaki comes closer, scowling. "You gave me so much trouble these past weeks." He glares at the fourth ajin one last time as Suzumura zips the bag up.

* * *

Izuru momentarily looks at the sky above him; he sees the sky’s dark blue is slowly giving away to warmer orange color. He internally muses that the sun should be up and about within a few more minutes.

He turns his attention back on the screen. At the moment, he’s outside as usual, leaning himself against the pole. His index finger swipes over the phone’s screen a few times; none of the latest news, if they can even be called that, interested him in any way. Several of them were simply the same thing that’s repeated all over again.

Speaking of that same and repetitive news, he exhales. He still remembers what happened back there so clearly. He’s been trying to check for her whereabouts, but, for some reason, he is unable to find even a single trace of her. It doesn’t help that she hasn’t sent any replies to him for almost a month now; around the same time when the incident took place.

It’s almost as if she completely disappeared.

If he could still feel, he might’ve feared for the worse, but once he considered the repetitive news he kept hearing about these past weeks, he figured that nothing might’ve happened just yet. The media isn’t exactly shy about these kinds of things.

While his eyes scan over the screen for something to do, he sees something that piqued his interest. From what he saw, it appears to be some sort of live broadcast. He decides to watch it, raising a brow as the news anchor showed their face on the screen.

A single breath hitches in his throat.

If it weren’t for his cold, vice-like grip on his phone, it would’ve slipped out of his hands at that moment. He never thought he’d feel his chest constrict so much.

What the news reporter said continues to echo in his ears.

“After almost a month of disappearance from the public eye, Nanami Chiaki, the fourth confirmed ajin case in Japan, is now reported to be under government custody.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I am very sorry for this cliffhanger. Trust me, you're going to hate me a lot more on the next update. It's going to be exciting, and also going to be really painful in all sorts of ways.
> 
> Anyways, it took at least seven chapters, but Izuru's back at last!


	13. Retina

~.~.~

Izuru remembered that day.

He remembered; Junko and Mukuro had taken him with them in a private vehicle, whisking him off to somewhere he wasn’t familiar with. He remembered how much Junko talked while her sister remained quiet; he didn’t bother to pay much attention to whatever she was saying. It’s boring, to hear her drone on about the same thing repeatedly.

When he thought about those two, he’d deduce they could barely even qualify as acquaintances, no matter how often Junko talked to him through the phone she gave him.

He remembered at least one of them told him he can’t stay with them. It’s obvious to see why; those two are students of Hope’s Peak Academy, the country’s most famous and prestigious high school dormitory. Even if they managed to find a spot for him, it’d be more troublesome to hide an outsider like him in a restrictive space.

Because of that, those two had to relocate him to somewhere else. Junko ended up choosing this small, unassuming town rather for him to stay put with. She said something about the place only taking an hour and a half train ride from there to their school.

That led him to the small town of Mitsutoshi. He should be safe here, if he believed what she told him to be true.

Before Junko officially dropped him off, she told him there were no other ajins around the town. She even jabbed at her sister and told him she double-checked just to make sure.

When they figured they’ve got everything down, she waved goodbye at him, grinning wildly at him, dragging her sister along. She snuck a glance at him one last time as she and her sister closed the train’s doors behind them.

He watched their ride sped off, leaving him behind in this train station.

It was just him again.

Placing his hands within his pockets, he walked out of the train station and into the middle of the town. There’s nothing noteworthy about this place that separated it from the others.

He thought back on what they said before leaving him be. If what they told him is indeed true, that there were no other ajins in this town aside from him, it should be alright for him to do this.

Izuru stopped in his tracks. The humans who happened to pass by him didn’t pay much attention to him. He didn’t care if they tried to sneak a glance towards his direction.

He closed his eyes, and in less than a split second, masses of black particles scatter around him. It didn’t take long for those black particles to coalesce, quickly beginning to form and take shape from his back.

A tall, humanoid creature emerged behind him. Both its arms and legs were of the same length and are also unnaturally long. The claws at the tip of its fingers were long and hook-like in shape. The least unnatural part of it would be its humanoid head. Even so, it lacked any recognizable facial features since its appearance made it look like it’s wrapped from head to toe in black cloth.

The black ghost craned its neck as if it was trying to familiarize itself with the unfamiliar surroundings. It turned its attention to him, lowering its head and hunching to get a better look at him.

In terms of height, Izuru would almost, if barely at all, reach his black ghost’s chest or shoulders at most. He glances at the black ghost from aside, muttering a single command to it.

“Go.”

The black ghost didn’t need any more prompting than that. Faster than its size would suggest, it leaped away from him, leaving to explore the town in his stead. As for him, he left to go and find a place he could stay. He isn’t worried about his black ghost getting found out. None of the humans surrounding him would be able to see it anyway.

For the next couple of days, he allowed it to roam around this area a few times, to get himself better familiarized with the town. Letting the black ghost do it was a lot more convenient this way. On the fourth day he’d been here, he knew each place in town as well as the surrounding areas by then.

This time, he found his black ghost perched on one of the utility poles within this particular area, where there were plenty of busy pedestrians along the curb.

It piqued his interest somewhat at that time. He didn’t command or will it to do so; it appeared to have done it by its own will. He reminded himself to test how far his black ghost’s supposed intelligence can go at some other time.

For now, he let it be.

While he remained seated in one of the public benches nearby, he kept his eyes closed, allowing him to use his black ghost’s line of sight like a second pair of eyes. Through its vision, he observed multiple groups of humans that flocked together below.

They all acted predictably the same. High school students grumbled while they’re forced to stay put by the traffic lights, preschoolers walked by the sidewalks in their own small groups, and the adults simply stood by with as much patience as the high school students.

His black ghost shifted its position, turning around to observe other passing humans, seemingly losing interest in watching the previous groups it saw. The next groups were no different from the previous ones.

And then, he felt something took note of him. No, that’s incorrect; something had noticed his black ghost’s presence.

Immediately sensing it, his black ghost turned around to look for who or what might’ve been staring at it. It still shared its vision with him, and so, Izuru watched its sight dart around once before landing on someone who might’ve seen it.

Both of them were greeted with the last thing he expected.

One of the civilians below stared back at his black ghost with wide, bewildered eyes. From what he can see, she’s a high school girl whom he shares the same age range with; if he’s guessing correctly from the uniform she was wearing.

The girl appeared to have almost jumped back, almost as if she knew his black ghost is now exclusively focusing on her. With the way she reacted, it only confirmed one thing; unlike the humans around this area, including the peers she stayed with, she can see his black ghost.

 _‘Impossible.’_ He thought to himself back then.

He knew a human shouldn’t be able to see it; Junko was human and she didn’t see his black ghost or her sister’s, even when both of them were right in front of her. Everyone in this town is human.

Izuru looked back at the girl below. _‘Unless…’_

The black ghost intensified its gaze against her. Through its vision, he saw the girl stand still in place. He can infer she wanted to look away from his black ghost, but she was too frozen in confusion and fear to do so.

And then, he sees someone called out to her. The girl blinked, turning away from his black ghost’s glare to face the boy with her. He used that small distraction to will his black ghost, making it leap off the utility pole it perched on.

While his black ghost hid itself in the same area, one thing remained in Izuru’s mind at that time.

He wished to know more about this strange girl.

~.~.~

In hindsight, the months that passed by between them only raised more questions for him. Back then, he thought that either Chiaki was almost good at keeping the ruse up or she genuinely had no idea of what she really is.

Considering what happened rather recently, it seems to lean heavily into the latter.

Izuru remembered that day, where he invited her to an almost isolated forest on a mountainside nearby, for the season’s flower viewing. Instead of watching the cherry blossoms bloom on the safer ground, they both ended up at the branches on one of the tallest trees.

He still remembered how carefree Chiaki looked back then.

He remembered how the branch cracked, and how she started to fall from there. He didn’t plan it, but back then was the perfect opportunity to test whether she was an ajin like him or not.

But then, at last second, something came over him. Despite his aversion to touch, he forced himself to grab onto her hands and pulled her up. He didn’t understand what compelled him to do it, even until now.

It was a close call.

Though his facial expressions didn’t change, those news headlines felt like they are taunting him. It almost made him entertain the idea of crushing his phone in his tightening grip.

_'The decision I made back then was a rather foolish one in hindsight. Had I allowed her to fall and reset back then, none of these events would’ve come to pass.'_

He was there at the incident; if it weren’t for his black ghost’s intervention, perhaps Chiaki would’ve been taken away right then and there. However, though she managed to escape that time, he hadn’t been able to figure out her whereabouts.

At least, not until now.

A single ding from his phone interrupts the rest of his thoughts. He looks over to his phone’s screen, and just as he thought, he received a message from the last person he wanted to entertain at this time.

In spite of that, he looks over Junko’s message to him.

**you saw the news this morning didn’t ya?**

He doesn’t get what she’s supposed to mean by that. An ajin’s capture is the absurdly big kind of news; it’s impossible for it to not spread so far in this country. She most likely knows his answer to her question already.

Still, he wills himself to text out a short reply.

**Indeed, I have.**

He sees Junko in the process of texting before he sees her next one.

**then you know what that means**

Izuru blankly stares at that. It didn’t take long before she sends him even more messages, almost like she’s texting them out to him rapidly. She didn’t give him any time to text back a reply.

It makes him think of all the times she ranted to him about her plans.

**kyaaa i’m so envious  
i wish i could be there to watch an ajin experiment in action**

**sure there was that video that got leaked out some time ago  
but that’s nothing compared to seeing one in person right?**

**upupupu i can already imagine the despair  
can you imagine having your body torn and cut apart  
a thousand times but at the end of it  
not even death can release you from that   
despairing experience**

**oh wait you totally can  
woopsies**

He knows she’s taunting him, reminding him of those times. He doesn’t let her get to him as he sends her this,

**If you're not going to be helpful in any way,  
then don't even bother to say another word.  
Continuing this conversation with you  
will only be a waste of my time.**

Junko’s next response is rather typical as always. She would often say similar things when they talked through a call.

**awww, don’t be such a meanie, izuru!**

**hmph, i know exactly where they’re  
keeping your girlfriend but now that  
you’re being such a big jerk i don’t  
feel like telling you anymore **

While putting away that specific word she used for Chiaki aside, those words piqued his interest. For this one time, he’d put away his annoyances towards Junko aside and show signs of cooperation.

 **I'm willing to listen**.

**you know you should’ve said so at the start!**

**this is why there’s no one else  
who likes talking with you**

Reading that almost made him reconsider what he’s asking of her. It’s tempting, but he supposes he shouldn’t act too hasty and so, he waits for her response. He pretends not to see the other message.

Junko quickly sends him her next message. This time, it’s something far more useful.

**here's the place:**

A second after that message, she sends him an image; it takes some time for it to fully load on his screen. Once it does, he furrows his brows, eyes taking the image in. Judging by the darkened skies, it looked as if it was taken last night. He closely examines the building itself and the area around and ingraining it into his mind.

She sends him another message, this time informing of the lab facility’s exact address. He memorizes the address, reminding himself to check it over later.

He hears a couple more pings from his phone. No words come out of him, as he blankly stares at those last two messages to him.

**remember the place izuuruuuu**

**don't be late! (●^ω^)** **ﾉ**

Izuru looks over those messages one more time, recapping the necessary information. As soon as he’s satisfied with what he learned, he turns the phone off and puts it back in his pants pocket. He has no more need to reply to her; he already has all the information he needed.

All he has to do now is to formulate a perfect plan.

* * *

Izumi tries her best to stay still. She’s standing by her superior’s side, right in front of other government officials who are just as, if not more important than Tosaki. Tosaki’s superiors were pleased for what he did, but their mood has been quickly soured last night when they learned a certain doctor from America is planning to visit Japan.

Both she and Tosaki are standing close by to the glass window while the other officials stay close by. She momentarily removes her attention from there and looks around; there’s something about these lab facility’s walls that feels rather unnerving for her.

Ever since the fourth national ajin official capture yesterday has spread throughout the country, there’s been some preparations made for today. From what she heard, they’ll run a few tests on the fourth ajin, and see if they can replicate the ability she displayed on that video.

Before she gets too lost in thought, she hears her superior call out her name.

"Shimomura.”

Having gotten herself used to it, she immediately turns to him. “Yes, Tosaki?”

Tosaki goes quiet for a few seconds or so, as if he’s letting her have some time before saying whatever he needs to say. He looks at the other officials at first, before moving over to glance at her from the side.

His voice is a bit softer as to not let the others overhear him, but it carried the same weight it usually had. He coldly tells her, “Remember that without me, you wouldn't be standing on this side of the glass today."

Upon hearing those words come out of his mouth, Izumi’s eyes become as wide as saucers. She goes completely against what her instincts are telling her and sneaks a glance over the lab’s window once more.

She sees a team of six surgeons preparing all sorts of tools they’d use for today, but they’re not what she’s focusing on. Instead, she’s focusing on the same thing everyone else is looking at with deep fascination.

Nanami Chiaki, the fourth national ajin, is wrapped from head to toe in bandages. The numbers ‘004’ is printed over the bandages that are wrapped around her eyes. It’s difficult to recognize her as the same high school student she used to be less than a month ago, which might’ve been intentional on the government’s part.

There’s something about the way those numbers were tacked on in a large, easy-to-read size that made her shudder on the inside.

While the surgeons finalize the preparations for their tools, the fourth ajin is lying still, strapped in place on the dissecting table.

The fourth ajin twitches before stirring herself awake at last. She softly groans, trying to move her limbs somewhat. Aside from those, her movements are a bit slow, mostly shifting her head around, as if she’s trying to check her surroundings better.

Those surgeons come closer to the table. At that exact moment, Chiaki seems to become fully conscious, realizes what’s going on, and proceeds to violently jerk and thrashes around her restraints in a vain attempt to try and free herself; against the metal straps all over her limbs and torso, it didn’t do much.

Izumi finds herself unable to look away for what’s about to happen to the government’s latest ajin captive. Her breathing hitches for a slight moment. She knows what’s going to come for her.

* * *

A groggy feeling washes over her head.

Chiaki groans, slowly waking up. While she’s still semi-conscious, she tries to think back on the last thing she remembered before this. A few bits of memories slowly come back to her; she remembered she was going out with Hajime, Satou, and Tanaka to buy some of the latest releases.

She then remembers hearing gunshots, and then she started feeling sleepy for no reason. She has a feeling those aren’t the only things that happened, that a few things are missing from her most recent memory.

Upon recalling the attack, her mind goes back to her three companions.

 _'Hajime, Mr. Satou, Tanaka…_ _What happened to them? Did they get away?’_ She tries to remember as much as she can, but her mind can’t seem to cooperate with her at the moment.

Her body instinctively shifts a bit. Everything feels so numb. She tries to raise her head, to try and get a better look at her surroundings even a little bit. She grunts; it’s not exactly a headache or a migraine, but her head feels so heavy.

_‘Where am I?’_

This room didn’t have any lights on, so she can't see anything right now. She tries to move her arms and legs. They feel so numb and heavy like they’re stuck in place for some reason.

An unusually strong, sterile scent hits her nose. This scent smells a lot like rubbing alcohol at home. She absentmindedly wonders why would this room smell like that in the first place, unless if this was a hospital or something.

A few more moments pass by quickly. It didn’t take long for her mind to clear at last, and once it did, her breath involuntarily hitches. Only now, she’s fully realizing what’s going on, and what’s going to happen to her.

The room was never dark in the first place; whoever brought her here has tied a blindfold around her eyes. After that realization, she also notices her body is uncomfortably wrapped in bandages. She tries to move her hands, but these bandages have wrapped them into useless fists.

 _‘No, no, no, no, no.’_ Her head frantically shakes while her arms and legs jerk and pull against her bindings as hard as she can. No matter how hard and how often she pulled at them, those straps around her limbs refused to budge even a little bit.

She registers footsteps and voices around her, causing her heart to beat even faster. She tries to say something, but the only things that come out of her are a bunch of muffled, unintelligible grunts.

“Ajin Subject 004 is awake.”

One of them hums. “So far, the subject’s heart rate is normal.”

Someone slightly pulls her blindfold off, letting her see for a split second. She sees a man who’s probably in his early or mid-thirties, wearing a surgeon’s uniform. His surgical mask and cap obscure the rest of his facial features.

His cold, detached eyes stare back at hers.

Within the next seconds, her eyes go wide at the same time the surgeon shoves his thumbs down to their level. The metal strap around her neck forcibly keeps her head in place as the man digs his finger deeper.

A muffled scream escapes from her. She moves her head from side to side, to try and dislodge his fingers off of her; it only made him double down on keeping them in there.

After several seconds of mutual struggling, the man pulls his fingers out with a loud pop.

Chiaki couldn’t see anything again after that. She pitifully groans, letting her head roll to the side. If only she could lose consciousness right then and there.

If she was about to do exactly that, then they didn’t let her.

Not even a minute after that, a hand roughly grabs her squirming arm. No matter what she did, she is left at his mercy and is unable to hold back another muffled scream as the surgeon swiftly saws above her elbow. She feels her fingers twitch for a split moment before they’re gone after.

The surgeon who took her arm muses loud enough for her to hear, "We'll compare this one with the arm that was retrieved from the day of the incident. We should able to check if there are any significant differences between the two limbs post-regeneration."

Not even a minute after he said that, she feels another hand grabbing her remaining arm the same way. She has no idea if this was the same surgeon or if he’s a different one. Either way, he saws the remaining arm off all the same.

One surgeon grabs her leg, securing it before cleaving right above her knee. She screams some more, feeling the surgeon bringing the cleaver down a few more times until she can’t feel her leg is there anymore. The surgeon repeats the same procedure for her other leg.

She wriggles around helplessly, still kept in place by the table’s metal straps around her torso. It’s all too much for her to bear. The numbness slowly settles in what’s left of her limbs.

She coughs; her throat has already gone hoarse from how much she’s been screaming. She tries to shift her head in a slightly more comfortable position, but it feels so much heavier. It doesn’t help she’s also starting to feel a lot more woozy.

She gags, now taking in the metallic scent of her own blood that filled the air. She doesn’t want to imagine how much she lost since she woke up.

The surgeons are talking to each other, but in each second that slowly ticks by, it’s getting harder to make out exactly what they’re talking about. Those men’s voices start to sound more and more muted in her hearing.

Some of them sound slightly clearer than the rest, if only by a bit. While trying to listen in as close as she can at this state, she manages to make out some audible sentences from them.

One of them states, "Subject 004 is no longer responding to stimuli."

"Think we should call for a reset?" Another one asks.

"We definitely do." A third voice replies.

She hears one of them come closer to her; before she even notices it, the surgeon’s scalpel cleanly stabs through the side of her head.

Everything goes blank.

* * *

Chiaki wakes up again.

Compared to what happened some time ago, it took less time for her head to clear up. Her eyes are back, but she still can’t see anything, not as long as the blindfold stays on. Her body is still strapped down to this operating table.

Nothing has changed for her.

A chill runs over her spine when she hears their footsteps come closer again.

Her body jerks violently on the dissecting table once more; she’s so focused on their next plans, she doesn’t really notice her arms and legs have grown back while flailing them around. She frantically shakes her head, silently begging them, _'No, no, no. Please. No more.'_

No one hears her.

Something thin and sharp presses down on her chest, snapping her out of her stupor. She realizes too late that the surgeon used a knife this time around, feeling it cut deep enough to break through the bandages and skin, but not too much to the point of stabbing her outright.

The surgeon slices all the way from her chest down to her abdomen.

One more muffled scream comes out of her covered lips. Her fingers clench tightly. Tears start to well up at the corners of her eyes, soaking through her blindfold. Her chest rapidly heaves up and down.

Gloved hands wrench the long, sizable cut apart. Her arms rapidly shake and shiver; she tries not to think of how it must’ve looked like in their perspective. Even then, her stomach churns at that thought.

“Hey,” One of the surgeons calls out, “Pass me the sternal saw.”

She shudders upon hearing him mention one of the tools by name. She didn’t want to know exactly what it does, but she knew she’d find out soon enough, whether she wanted to or not.

That surgeon presses the sternal saw to her, and it didn’t take long for the tool’s loud and noisy buzzing to seamlessly intermingle with her muffled wails. No matter how much she thrashes around in place, the surgeon kept going at it, letting the tool cut through bone.

She had no idea how long she’s been screaming, only that her voice gave out at some point. Even when the buzzing stops at last, she didn’t keep herself from pitifully moaning at the end of it.

After that, she hears a soft clank, letting her know the surgeon set the sternal saw aside for now. One of the surgeons then asks out loud, "So which one do I start pulling out first?"

More heavy waves of nausea hit her once she hears what he said. Her mind is somewhat lucid enough to realize what these surgeons are planning to do to her this time. She tries not to sob at the thought. She fails.

Another surgeon answers in a tired voice, “As long as you save the lungs and heart for last, then it doesn't really matter. I don't want to needlessly cut our subject open again because you messed it up." It’s easy to picture that man shrugging while he says that.

She forces herself to swallow the rising bile in her throat.

The team of surgeons silently starts their next work. Their hands dig and prod themselves in, feeling over the contents inside, making her sharply gasp. They go through cutting and pulling through whatever they can find one by one.

Chiaki lets out pained whimpers in between each wet, sickening squelch. She can’t bring herself to scream anymore; all that’s left of her voice has already cracked some time ago, back when they were cutting her open in preparation for this.

She has a feeling this won’t be the last time they’d cut her open like this, not when an infinite and steady supply is right here for them to take.

The passage of time feels so hazy to her now. A small part of her wonders if these surgeons are dragging these sickening ‘tests’ out for as long as they can; if they’re trying to see how long she can last before they’d have to forcibly reset her.

It might’ve been just minutes to them, but this felt so much longer for her. For all she knew, several hours might’ve passed already.

When they cut and pull the next organ out of her, she violently chokes and hacks on with what little breath she has left. It feels like her nose and mouth are closing themselves in on her, making her slowly suffocate.

Her limbs would jerk or slightly twitch now and then, but those were mostly involuntary. Those movements aren’t as strong or violent as it’d been earlier.

The surgeon’s hands go over inside her once more. It took everything in her to keep herself from gurgling out bile that’s building up once more. The surgeon grabs ahold of her last organ, making her feel so nauseous at that thought.

He’s relatively more delicate in his hold, even compared to the previous ones he grabbed. She feels him cut through a few more times before pulling her heart off of her.

If she still had her lungs, she would’ve been wheezing out right now. But because she doesn’t, all she can do is lay down, staying as still as a corpse would be.

She didn’t even have the strength to struggle some more against the table’s metal straps anymore. As she lies down on the cold table, never feeling so exposed and vulnerable until at this exact moment, a dark thought comes to her. She feels disgusted at herself for thinking about it, but she wishes she doesn’t come back this time.

Those men are saying something to each other again, but most of them were almost hard for her to hear at this point. She did, however, manage to make out at least two clear sentences.

“It’ll take maybe a minute for 004 to reset if we wait this out. Mind if you do it this time?”

“Alright, I’m on it.”

Chiaki hears the man’s footsteps come closer to her. As time slows down for her, the last thing she thought is, _‘Why…Why are humans so cruel?’_

Something sharp and thin pierces its way through her forehead.

Everything goes blank once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Welp, this chapter hurt a lot to write, hehe. Another big thanks to Vixen7117 for giving me a solid advice for this chapter. I didn't want to make a certain feel like mindless torture porn and/or make it feel like I'm pushing the T rating, so her advice about keeping the exact details simple is heavily appreciated.


	14. Deficit

It’s been a day since that disastrous outing.

Hajime is still lying down somewhat comfortably on the futon they prepared for him. His body is barely moving, and if it weren’t for the painfully slow rise and fall of his chest, it’d be easy to mistake him for dead.

The gunshot wound wasn’t as bad as it would’ve been. The bullet had been lodged into his side, which made him lose quite a bit of blood, but thankfully, it didn’t hit bone or any vital organ. Satou had done most of the work after Tanaka reset him when they got back here, including cleaning the wound as best he can and disinfecting it, and then wrapping the boy’s side with a dressing.

With how quick and efficient Satou was during the process, it’s almost like he might’ve done something like this before.

The second national ajin is shifting around, pacing himself back and forth with, hands tucked underneath his pockets. Discomfort is very obviously displayed all over his face. His teeth grind against each other. He paces some more. One of his hands shot out of his pocket to stressfully grip all over his hair.

On the other side, Satou is lying down comfortably on the couch in the middle of the room, looking far more relaxed than how he usually is while playing some video game again. In Tanaka’s opinion, the older ajin looks a bit too comfortable and too relaxed for this case.

Tanaka mutters something under his breath; it’s too soft and rushed to properly decipher exactly what he said. His footsteps grow louder and more erratic.

Satou raises a brow. For the first thirty minutes, he didn’t mind it that much, since his comrade isn’t personally talking to him, but now, it’s getting too loud and distracting even for him. There’s no way he can ignore this any longer.

Having made his decision, he shuts his console off after saving his game. He stretches his arms, bends his back a bit, and then gets up from the couch. He approaches the restless ajin, and without warning, puts a hand over his shoulder.

Tanaka abruptly stops in his tracks. He slightly turns his head around to face him.

The older ajin flashes a smile and gently tells him, "Please, calm yourself down there, Tanaka."

The old man doesn’t get the effect he intended. If anything, it only worsens the situation in the other ajin’s mind.

Once he hears that, all sorts of awful memories flood back to his mind. Tanaka turns around to face the old man better. His eyes narrow and he grits his teeth. He felt like he’s on the verge of shouting. "Calm down? Calm down?! Hinata was shot and he still hasn’t woken up, and we ended up having to leave Nanami behind," His fists clench and unclench. "Those bastards are going to find me again, and you want me to calm down—"

The older ajin raises a hand to interrupt him. His tone doesn’t change, even after being yelled out. "Don't worry. We're not in trouble.” He chuckles. “In fact, we never were."

Those words made him stop. His anxiety immediately changes into confusion and he asks the old man, "What do you mean 'we never were'?"

“I had a feeling you’d ask that. Now, mind if you give me a moment or so?”

“Uh, sure.” He timidly answers back.

The old man leaves his vicinity for a while. It didn’t take too long for him to come back, and once he does, he’s holding a gun in his arms.

Upon a closer look, Tanaka realizes that it’s a tranquilizer gun. It’s similar to what he was supposed to use on the fourth ajin a day ago, but unlike that one, this one looks like it’s been used recently. At that moment, his mind puts two and two together

“Mr. Satou…” His voice falters for a split second while his eyes trail over the tranquilizer gun. He swallows. “Did you…?”

“It was the only way, Tanaka.” He answers far too quickly for him. “I may have enjoyed playing games with her, but I told you this before. Nanami is too soft for our cause.”

There’s no denial from him. There’s no further explanation than those three simple sentences. It’s like he thinks that’s all there is to it. Tanaka isn’t exactly sure what to make of that.

As if noticing his discomfort, Satou casually waves a hand off. "Ah, you don’t have to worry so much about it now,” He shakes his head. “Besides, it won't be that long. We'll break her out of the lab after ten days have passed, or after Hinata wakes up and starts getting better, whichever comes first."

His lips press together as he asks in a bewildered voice, “Ten days?”

Satou shrugs his shoulders. He hums thoughtfully, brings two fingers to rub over his chin. “When you think about it, that’s nothing compared to the ten years you’ve lost. Don’t you think so?”

He grimaces at the comparison. He may have been put through much worse for a decade, but he knew too well that no normal person would last even a day in that hell, even if they’ll come back to life no matter what; if one day was enough to break a normal person, then how much more if it was ten days or more than that?

“Now,” Though his eyes remain shut as always, at this moment, it feels like Satou is staring intently at him. His smile melts away to a more serious frown. "You promise you won't try to disobey me again, won't you, Tanaka?"

His eyes go over from the tranquilizer gun to the older ajin’s kindly and serene face. "I..." He averts his eyes. He breathes out, releasing any remaining tension in his body. He shakes his head, "Of...of course, Mr. Satou."

“I’m glad to hear that.” The old man says, reaching a hand out to pat down on his head.

Tanaka stays still. He lets Satou’s fingers ruffle through his hair.

* * *

Hajime blearily opens his eyes. He squints; a hand reaches up to cover them while his eyes try to get used to the bright light above him again. He groans out loud. His body ached all over. One of his hands almost reaches over to grab at his side, only for someone to pull his wrist away.

He blinks. He sees a blurry figure looking down on him. The voice, a deep, gravelly, and masculine one, is soft and gentle as it tells him, “Hinata, it’s great to see you up and about again.”

His vision finally clears, and the blurry figure shifts to a certain old man. “Mr. Satou?” He mumbles out; on the inside, he notices his voice sounds a bit softer and has a rasp to it.

Satou smiles at him. “You’ve been out for two days. Since you’re human, we were quite worried you wouldn’t make it through.”

He mentally recaps through what the old ajin has just told him. It takes him a few seconds to comprehend it all. His mind unwittingly goes back to the second thing he told him, making him blurt out in confusion, “Wait, two days?”

“Yes. Two days have already passed before you woke up just now. You’re one tough guy, Hinata.” Satou confirms for him.

The old man is saying something else after that, but Hajime can’t find it in himself to hear him out. He knows that Tanaka and Satou are sitting by his side right now, but, he can’t help but notice someone is missing among them.

He looks from both sides. “W…Where’s Chiaki?” Upon saying his friend’s name, something clicks in his mind. Flashes of what happened to their outing go back to his mind. “Chiaki.”

Without warning, the boy pulls the covers off of him. He ignores the two’s surprised calls at him and didn’t care even a bit about the possible consequences; he tries to pull himself up and off of the futon.

“Wait, you shouldn’t move yourself so much!” Tanaka approaches closer, putting his arms out like he’s going to try and push the boy back into the futon if he so much as takes a step out.

Not like he’d need to do that; Hajime isn’t even out for a few inches and he lurches, falling back to the soft fabric, groaning while clutching at his side.

Tanaka looks over him with concern. “Hinata, are you okay?”

He isn’t paying attention to the second ajin. Instead, his eyes narrow, shooting an intense glare toward the older ajin. He shouts, “This is all your fault! If I…” He knows his voice is about to crack; whether it’s because he hasn’t used it in two days or because of something, he had no idea. His teeth grind against each other. ”If I never agreed with your dumb as hell idea, then Chiaki…she…she’d—”

The boy isn’t even able to finish his sentence before he completely breaks down. It didn’t matter much to him if these two were watching; it’s nothing compared to what might be happening to the only person he cares about.

He feels a hand soothingly rub his back. Whether it was Tanaka or Satou who’s doing it, he didn’t care. He uses the back his hand to wipe at the corners of his eyes

A minute of quiet passes by them before the old man speaks to him again.

"Hinata, please try to understand. There's nothing we can do, especially not with your current shape. We can’t risk opening your wound again. You’re still in a rather delicate position."

“Mr. Satou is right.” Tanaka supplies in.

“Tch,” is all that he replies with, forcing himself to look away from them. He knows the older ajin had a point there. Unlike them, he can’t just shrug these injuries off like they’re nothing. Still, it doesn’t mean he has to like it. He doesn’t say anything more to them; he feels too emotionally exhausted to do so.

It’s a bit abrupt, but he forces himself to lie back on the futon, slowly breathing out as he closes his eyes. He wonders, maybe if he pretended to sleep, then these two would leave him alone. He doesn’t hear anything shuffle beside him, letting him know that those two are still right there, watching over him.

He sighs. Then again, it’s not like he’ll be able to sleep for real anyway, at least, not until physical exhaustion would force itself in on him. Either way, he can’t bring himself to truly relax after finding out what happened.

Even when he shuts his eyes far too tightly, a few things continuously repeat again and again in his mind.

_‘I failed. I couldn’t do anything right. It happened again. I’m so stupid.’_

* * *

Hajime has already fallen asleep an hour ago since that pep talk, which isn’t that surprising; learning that his friend was captured and possibly being tortured at this moment must’ve been overwhelming for a youngster. As for Tanaka, he has gone off to somewhere in the warehouse to think things over, especially about the plan they have.

Since the other two aren’t available at the moment, Satou is left by himself this time around. While his fingers deftly press over the console’s buttons, making his character nimbly dodge through obstacles, he absentmindedly thinks back on his plan.

Thanks to his IBM, as well as a few credible sources, he knows where the government is keeping her. It’s a bit farther than what he’s used to, but that’s not really a problem. The raid will happen by evening anyways.

Speaking of the raid…

He thinks back on the day he rescued Tanaka. If he’s remembering correctly, it wasn’t that difficult to take the security down. It was kind of underwhelming, to be honest, but to be fair, breaking the second ajin out was the bigger priority back then, so there’s that.

And now that they have Chiaki in their hands, he has a feeling they won’t make it any easier. The Japanese government has already lost three of their ajins, and so, they’re going to put up more of a fight to keep the fourth one when he comes in there, guns blazing. It won’t be surprising if they added dozens of more security guards after the last two incidents.

He smirks. Not that he minds at all. He’s always up for a good challenge.

Hopefully, the security guards they’ll send out to face him would last a bit longer. It’s a stretch for him to think about it, but he also hopes that maybe they won’t be a big disappointment like the last ones.

It isn’t really fun to cut down a bunch of weak enemies. He might as well be grinding anyway by then.

* * *

It’s dark.

The sterile scent all over the room is overwhelming. It won’t take long before a more metallic scent mixes in, if not completely overpowering it.

 _‘How long has it been?’_ Chiaki inwardly asks to no one in particular. Ever since she first woke up here, she had no idea exactly when she started losing track of time.

She hears steps clacking all over tiles. It makes her shrink back on the table as much as she can despite the metal straps keeping her body in place. She pulls against the restraint on her left wrist, futilely trying to snap it off.

It doesn’t.

Someone forcefully holds her struggling wrist down.

A buzzing noise fills her ears, and before she knows it, a raw sensation starts ripping through at the tip of her finger. One more scream comes out of her covered lips. Her thumb twitches.

She hears one of the surgeons say, “One down, nineteen to go.”

It’s probably her mind tricking her after being trapped here for who knows how long, but she swears she hears one of the men laugh after that. Something burns in her chest. She doesn’t want to hear any more of what they’re saying.

She wants to feel angry, but, who should she be angry at? The government, for endorsing ajins to be treated this way? The surgeons, for constantly putting her through these sick experiments? Humans, for letting all of these happen?

Any further thoughts about that are interrupted. The tool they’re using, whatever it might be, quickly rips through the tip of another finger. Her body lurches back on the table while she tries to bite back one more scream.

“Two down, eighteen to go.” The same surgeon says, only this time, his voice is louder. It’s almost like he wants her to hear what he’s saying.

Her left hand clenches harder. _‘What did I do to them? What did I do to deserve something like this?’_

Another rip. “Three down, seventeen to go.”

Her teeth remain gritted. An audible groan slips past her.

Another rip. “Four down, sixteen to go.”

She bites her tongue to forcefully keep herself quiet. Despite that, a pained whimper barely slips through her covered lips.

One more tear and this time, Chiaki finds herself unable to hold back her agonized scream. Her right hand twitches numbly.

“Five down, fifteen to go.”

Her chest slowly rises and falls. She shivers, feeling their fingers go over her left hand. The process repeats and it didn’t take long for her voice to give out once more.

By the time the surgeon says out loud, “Twenty down, now there’s none left to go.” her hands and feet have grown numb.

As she braces herself for the next set of tests that’d come, she wonders a few things to herself. Maybe she should just…stop thinking about everything. Maybe it’d make things easier. Maybe they’ll get tired of this eventually, but, she doubts that’d ever happen. They’ve been experimenting on other ajins for far longer.

By then, she remembers that Tanaka has been kept here for ten years. The idea makes her shudder.

 _‘Am I going to be trapped in here for as long as that?’_ She asks herself, but there is no answer to that. It’s pointless to ask any more of these stupid questions. It’s not like anyone will hear her anyway.

Something thin and sharp slashes through her throat. She hacks and coughs violently, choking her life away while tasting her own blood. It might’ve been just a few minutes that passed. It feels like one of the surgeons is starting to get impatient, and so, he stabs through her forehead again.

It’s brief, but at the end of that, she sadly breathes out her last breath. She inwardly muses, if she even bothered to count her countless deaths, it might’ve been her hundredth one by now. Everything goes blank again.

* * *

A single drop of cold sweat trails down Izumi’s neck.

The surgeons didn’t get any desirable results while working with the fourth ajin test subject for the past two days. No matter how much pain they put the teenager through, nothing they did came close to replicating the incident in the video; not even a single one of them was touched in any way.

Izumi knew to herself the reason why nothing happened back there. It’s because Chiaki’s black ghost had never manifested throughout those experiments. It’s…rather odd, to say the least. She thought that it’d at least manifest somehow to protect her from the experiments, and yet, nothing came out of it.

At least, not until this moment.

The woman’s breath hitches in her throat, watching the fourth ajin’s body slowly turn limp as each minute passes by. As painful it was to look at, that’s not what caught her attention. Instead, it was the mass of black matter that’s slowly forming into a more distinguishable, humanoid shape.

A few seconds pass, and there, she sees it. Chiaki’s black ghost has fully manifested, but, there’s something not right with it. Izumi isn’t sure about what it is, but she decides it isn’t too important at the moment.

The surgeons reset Chiaki again, forcing her back into consciousness.

Izumi continues to observe the black ghost’s behavior. Its posture is slouched over, making it appear shorter than how it actually is. It isn’t doing anything, but standing passively in its place. It barely reacted to anything, even when its ajin is currently wriggling and writhing on the dissecting table while the surgeons drill her teeth in. If anything, it didn’t appear to pay any attention to its surroundings that much. She might even say it looked like it was lost in thought.

Tosaki notices her reaction. He discreetly leans in closer to whisper to her, “Do you see it, Shimomura?”

She gives him a low nod in reply.

“What is it doing now?” He asks, raising his head back, eyes narrowed as if he’s searching for where the black ghost was standing.

Her gaze focuses back on the black ghost. “So far, it’s simply staying put.”

Just as she said that, the black ghost slowly turns its head around to face their direction. Without any warning, it begins walking towards them. The sight is unnerving since its movement isn’t natural at all; it looked less like it was walking and more like it’s limping towards them.

Its voice breaks her out of her stupor.

 ** _"Don't remember meeting..."_** The black ghost staggers a little bit in its steps as it comes closer to them. It tilts its head to the side and finishes what it's saying. **_"...You."_**

One of the surgeons in that room turns slightly his head to the side like he might’ve heard what it said. After looking over it a few more times, one of his colleagues taps onto his shoulder. He decides to shrug it off and go back to what he’s doing.

Back to Izumi and Tosaki, her eyes gaze back into the black ghost. She swallows. _‘It’s trying to communicate with me.’_

Even though it lacked visible eyes, it seems like its stare bore directly into her and her superior. Now that it’s closer to them, she can take better notes of its appearance.

Height-wise, she’d reach up until its chin, but since its currently slouching over, she had a feeling it’d be a bit taller than that. Its build is rather scrawny without much muscle definition compared to Kuro. Its hands are a bit big for its size, almost like they’re exaggerated. Lastly, its head appears to be somewhat humanoid, but at the same time, its head shape looks like it’s melded together with a helmet’s. It’s nothing like what she expected it to be.

“It’s right in front of us now.” She whispers back to her superior.

Tosaki stands his ground, narrowing his eyes at the creature he can’t see at all. He adjusts his glasses and then crosses his arms, frowning.

**_"...Can I ask you something?"_ **

She remains silent, unsure of what to make of that. Even if it was trying to speak to her, she knows she wouldn’t be able to reply without casting suspicion on herself.

Despite her lack of input, the black ghost continues with its next question anyway. What it said next made her heart stop.

**_"What did...I...do...to deserve this?"_ **

Izumi barely stops herself from instinctively stepping back with a gasp.

The black ghost rears itself up, rising in a straighter posture to its full height. The black ghost then parts the lips of its helmet-like head structure to reveal human teeth. It screams at Izumi, a meter away from her face, only blocked by a thin pane of glass between them, **_"What did I do?! What did I do?!"_**

That got the attention of a couple of the surgeons, making them pause from their work for a split moment.

One of its hands curl into a fist and it raises it above its head; if it weren't for the pane of glass separating the two, it would've looked like the black ghost specifically targeted Izumi in its fury.

In response to that, Izumi wastes no time raising an arm to the side to push back and shield Tosaki. Still, she flinches in place when she sees its fist strikes hard at the glass.

The other government officials begin stepping back with shock in their eyes once they saw and heard the first crack. Even if they can’t see the black ghost responsible, it’s impossible for them to not notice the damage it’s causing.

The black ghost screams at them some more. Each word it screamed is punctuated with a harsh punch against the glass. Each time its clenched fist collides with the supposedly durable material, cracks begin to form in a circle, right in the middle.

**_"WHAT."_ **

_Crack._

**_"DID."_ **

_Crack._

**_"I."_ **

_Crack._

**_"DO?!"_ **

_CRACK_

The last punch has left a noticeably large puncture on the glass; the puncture also has cracks all around it, cracks that are trailing up from several inches to half a meter in length.

One of the government officials who saw that pushes his glasses back. His eyes go over from each crack. Awe is dripping in his tone as he says out loud, “Amazing…”

The others are just as enthusiastic as he is. They start talking with each other in speculation.

“It must be some sort of psychic ability.”

“This certainly proves 004 is truly a variant like we thought. It looks like our tests weren’t fruitless after all. I think it’s time we intensify the tests to see more of the subject’s potential.”

When Izumi heard a voice at the end of the black ghost's outburst, she had a hard time believing it came from the same creature. And yet, she heard it say two words clearly with more melancholy in its tone than a solidified mass of black matter should have.

She might even say it looked away from them because of shame.

**_"I'm sorry..."_ **

* * *

She hurriedly follows back her superior back after that fiasco.

Right now, they’re back inside her superior’s office.

Tosaki settles himself down on his seat. He mutters, "To think that fourth’s black ghost would manifest itself just like that." He takes his box of mints, takes one out, and quickly pops it in his mouth. “I find it odd nothing was harmed in its tantrum.”

Izumi shakes her head, thinking to herself, _‘I can't say the same for the glass, however.’_ She takes a seat on the chair right in front of his desk. “About the black ghost…”

He glances at her. “What is it?”

She thinks back on the black ghost’s appearance, inwardly comparing it with the driver’s testimony. After considering it, she tells him, “Nanami’s black ghost didn't match the bus driver's report."

The man curiously side-eyes her for a split-second, before asking her, "Care to elaborate?"

She explains to him, "From what I recall, the driver mentioned he reached at least until the black ghost's chest, which would make its height more than two hundred and thirty centimeters. The black ghost in the lab, on the other hand, was shorter than that. I might even say it’s almost like it shrunk itself."

"Shrunk itself? Tch.” He scoffs dismissively, shaking his head. “Now isn't the time to humor me, Shimomura."

She shakes her head. "But it's true. I doubt that it actually shrunk itself, but when I saw it, it looked smaller than Kuro, not just in height, but in its build as well."

He goes silent, mulling over the possibility. _‘It sounds so unbelievable, but at the same time, there’s no reason for Shimomura to lie to me. For now, that is.’_ He sighs, putting a hand over his head. "Are there any more differences you've noticed?"

Izumi furrows her brows, trying to recall as much as she can from the black ghost’s appearance. “For one, its limbs weren't abnormally long for a black ghost. Its hands are somewhat bigger than normal. While the overall body is humanlike in shape, its head doesn't look exactly human at all."

"Oh, how so?" That detail perked his interest.

"Mm, how do I put it? It resembled a more…helmet-like structure. From what I've seen earlier, it also possesses a set of human teeth in its mouth."

He crinkles his nose in disgust upon hearing that. "Human teeth? I believe I didn't need to know that. What exactly are you implying by telling me about this? Are you saying that her black ghost somehow changed its appearance?"

"That's one way to put it, but I don't know if that's possible." She admits. "I've never heard of something like that happening before."

"Do you have an alternate theory then?"

"If it's not that, then do you think we've been mistaken this whole time? Do you think that maybe the black ghost back at the first incident was never hers in the first place?"

He reflects on her words. It sounds ridiculous to him, but then again, most speculate there are more undocumented ajin in the country. His eyes go wide, having come to the same conclusion as her at the last second. "Shimomura, are you seriously suggesting—?"

"Tosaki,” Izumi begins, “I think there's another, perhaps even an unknown ajin out there. I know it sounds farfetched, but it may be someone who might've known Nanami before these events happened.” She turns to him with an unreadable expression. “Why else would that black ghost try to protect her during that incident if it was never hers at all?"

* * *

Izuru himself is standing at the outskirts of the facility, a few meters away from the surrounding fences. The area is slowly getting darker, which means the security should be heightened in less than an hour. Although they’re housing only a single ajin, there were far too many men stationed in and out of the facility.

Because of that, he didn’t let himself get any closer than necessary, simply watching back from a reasonable distance. He wouldn’t be foolish enough to come running in at this time.

In the meantime, his black ghost is the one maneuvering through the area in his place, as well as sneaking itself in the building through the vents.

Although no one would be able to see it as far as he knows, after the day he met Chiaki, he made sure his black ghost kept out of anyone’s sight as much as possible in case if there’s another ajin among the people in the facility.

He wouldn’t put it past some of the officials to hire an ajin to hunt their own kind.

His eyes go over the surrounding forest once more. Not only does he need to study the layout inside the facility, but the area outside as well to find the most effective escape route once he retrieves the fourth ajin.

He closes his eyes, allowing him to see through his black ghost’s vision once more. Their routine hasn’t changed that much. Their experiments start at exactly six AM and then end at nine PM. There are two teams of surgeons at most and they work in shifts, ensuring that they get a break while also refusing to let their test subject rest from their torture sessions.

He remembers he had to rein his black ghost back a few times, to keep it from jumping out of the vents and lunging at the surgeons right then and there. He doesn’t remember it being as bothersome as it is now to control before.

The boy opens his eyes, not quite satisfied with the same information that’s been confirmed. He glances at the facility’s canals, musing to himself, _'If it were to rain during those days, the waters within the facility's drainage should rise up and allow entrance into the ocean. It'd be the most effective escape method.'_

' _And yet,’_ His mind racks up a scenario, one that didn’t end pleasantly for the two of them. _‘It is also the riskiest due to its unpredictability. There is no guarantee the rainwater will fill it enough, or if it will even rain at all. If it fails, it'll only result in both of us being recaptured, a scenario that will render all of my extensive planning for naught.’_

He stares at the sky. _‘It's concluded. That plan should only be used as the final resort.'_

Shortly after that, he hears something run back to him. It should’ve sound concerning, but he isn’t bothered by that at all. No one else should be here, aside from him.

The boy comments in a dull tone without even bothering to look at the black ghost, “You came back far quicker than I anticipated.”

Normally, it wouldn’t say much back to him. It wasn’t much of a chatterbox, but again, this black ghost is challenging the way their dynamic used to be like.

 ** _"You're...far too...reckless..."_** The black ghost, still right behind him, speaks up. **_"Are you...not aware...of that...?"_**

"Hmph, you're far more talkative than you used to be." He replies without so much as glancing back at it.

 ** _"In a way..."_** The black ghost admits.

From what Izuru has seen so far, the black ghost did have a point. No matter how extensively he’ll plan through this, he knows he won’t be able to get past the facility’s dozens of guards without getting caught. Even if he had his black ghost to help him, his options remain limited.

Even so, he’ll figure something out. Until then, he’ll have to take his time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: *rubs hands gleefully* Oh ho, it looks like things are about to get heated real soon.
> 
> In all seriousness, we've only got two chapters before the end of the first arc. I can't wait to see how it goes through.


	15. Relinquish

More than several days passed at this point.

The wound at his side is slowly healing up, but that doesn’t mean he’s completely fine as of yet. He still has some bandages wrapped around his side and he isn’t allowed to move too much at this time.

Hajime thinks back on what happened during those days. He remembered that those two ajins have been preparing rather carefully for their rescue mission. Based on what they figured out so far, they found the facility where the government is keeping Chiaki in; since the government has already lost most, if not all of their previously detained ajins, they’ve increased the security to keep the fourth one this time around.

The thought of what they’ve been doing to the ajins under their ‘care’ has sickened him so much. He can’t even imagine what they’re doing to his friend. And yet, here he is, doing nothing but sitting around and waiting for the right moment to finally break her out of that hell.

He knows to himself when they finally do that, Chiaki wouldn’t be the same anymore. He grits his teeth, his chest tightening even more from the intense guilt he’s carrying. To think he’d fail twice now.

 _‘No. I can’t keep mulling over that.’_ He shakes his head free from any more of those thoughts. _‘Constantly beating myself up won’t help anyone, and it won’t get Chiaki out any faster.’_

His thoughts go back to what Satou had told him about the basic gist of their plan. He memorized every last word and detail the old man told him. It sounded foolproof on paper, but, he knows it’d be a different story when they actually put it into motion.

To fit in with the second part of Satou’s plan, Tanaka isn’t dressed in his usual red coat and blue pants. Instead, he’s dressed in a hospital gown, and to complete the look, is also seated in a wheelchair.

For Hajime, he’s just dressed in his normal, casual clothes, composed of his plain white shirt, pants, and of course, his favorite tie.

Speaking of that, he can’t help but re-adjust his favorite green tie as a different set of anxiety sets in for him. This isn’t the first time he’s worn it outside, but when he thought about the plan, it feels kind of embarrassing to wear it this way. His favorite tie did have the insignia of Hope’s Peak Academy on it. At least neither of the two ajins has commented on it.

Satou has already gone off to do the main objective a few minutes ago. The old man told them he’d be fine, and he got spent time preparing the gear he got from some yakuza guy whose name is Nekozawa. That is, if Hajime is remembering that guy’s name correctly.

At the moment, it’s only him and the second ajin right here on the facility’s ground floor. It’s a miracle no one has spotted them, but then again, maybe Satou is already wreaking havoc right now and they’ve called all of the security to dispatch him at once.

It’s tempting to laugh. A bunch of humans wouldn’t be able to do much to an older, more experienced ajin.

There aren’t many noises here, besides the constant pitter-patter from the rain outside. Since there’s no one else around aside from each other, there’s been nothing but awkward silence going on between them.

To try and break the ice a bit, Hajime remarks out loud, "Looks like it's just the two of us now, Tanaka."

"You don't say." Tanaka sarcastically snaps back, rolling his eyes in annoyance.

The human boy lets out an uneasy chuckle. He shakes his head. “I really hope this plan works.” He mutters.

The only thing they have to do now is to wait.

* * *

All of Tosaki’s superiors were discussing a few important matters regarding their fourth ajin subject. In addition to that, they’ve also spoken about a certain Dr. Ogura right behind his back, one whom they all had a major distaste for and didn’t even bother to hide it in their faces and tone.

Tosaki has contributed a few times, but for the most part, he was simply listening in and taking note of their conversations.

Right now, he heard one or two of them complain about the recent research they’ve done with Ajin Subject 004. They’ve said something about being unable to replicate the incident from July seven or the time at the lab recently. They also made several more points about the fourth subject’s stagnated potential, but he started to tune them out after a while.

Before everyone knew it, their once relatively peaceful discussions are interrupted by the security alarm’s loud ringing. Their attention then turns onto the security monitors at the top part of the wall, which is currently showing several teams of security guards coming out to rush at the door.

The government superiors start murmuring among each other. What they’re saying is layered on top of each other, so it’s hard to understand exactly what they’re saying. The only thing that’s somewhat audible is the occasional, “What the hell is going on there right now?”

Seeing that no one will take action any time soon, Tosaki gets up from his seat. He takes a closer look at the screen, adjusting his glasses when he sees someone enter that area. “An intruder…?” He mutters out loud.

Izumi stays right behind him. Her eyes are focused on the screen as well.

It didn’t take long before it became clear who the intruder was. Despite the camera’s quality, the intruder’s defining trait is unmistakable; Tosaki’s right hand curls into a fist, now truly realizing who it was.

The old man within the screen abruptly stops in his tracks, before facing towards them. He smiles, greeting them with, _“Good evening, Mr. Tosaki. I’d apologize for dropping in unnoticed, but that’d be a lie, won’t it? Either way, you should know by now that tonight, everything will change for Japanese ajins.”_

At the end of that, the screen screeches loudly in static for a few seconds before going black.

The government superiors turn to each other once again, muttering their mutual disbelief.

“Who the hell is that?”

“What is he doing here? Is he seriously going to try and take Subject 004 away from us?”

“Exactly what did he mean by changing everything for Japanese ajins?”

In Tosaki’s case, it took everything within him to not slam his fist on the wall. His teeth grit against each other, eyes narrowing while everything the old man said plays back in his mind. It’s clear to him that the intruder came all the way here for one thing.

_‘Damn you, Hat…’_

* * *

This is where the fun part of the plan begins.

Satou barges through the entrance of the ground floor, surprising the security guards who were stationed there. After a second of shock, they immediately recover from their stupor and begin to aim their guns towards him. “Hey!”

He sneers at their futile display. Two, simple words are released from the old ajin’s lips.

“Play ball.”

The old ajin charges towards those men just as they start shooting in his direction. Judging by their shocked shouts and panicked yells, they’re surprised by such a reckless and not mention, self-endangering move. He can’t blame them; no ordinary human would ever try to charge head-on like he’s doing right now. It’s one of the greatest perks of being unable to stay dead, after all.

He takes a pistol out and starts shooting as well. He smirks in satisfaction when he sees a couple or so of fountains of blood erupt from the men’s chests.

Even better, not a single one of them has managed to hit him just yet. Is this really the so-called ‘new and improved security’ the government invested to keep the one ajin they have left in? He doesn’t think so. It doesn’t help that whenever one of them manages to get close to him, they’re swiftly dealt with a knife to their throat.

The rest decide it’d be smarter to fire at him from a distance after that. Not that it worked for them in the first place anyway.

Two more shots are fired from his pistol, and two more bodies fall to the floor. He fires one more time. No one was hit. His lips purse together while he carefully observes his surroundings; there were more security guards than he expected, he’ll give it to them.

Satou feels something prick on top of his hand. He looks down and sees a red dart right on that spot. “Oh?” He raises a brow. Dizziness slowly to settle in his mind around the same time he noticed it.

The remaining guards take note of that, and judging by their reactions, they gained their confidence back.

A shame that won’t be the case for long.

With a relaxed smile, he brings his knife out, and in one motion, his knife cleanly slices through his arm, right below the elbow. The discarded limb flies before it drops off to the ground with a soundless thud.

He charges one more time. Once he takes down another man with a bullet to the leg, he points the gun to his own head. In less than a second, he shoots himself right there with a cocky smirk before his body collapses in a limp heap on the floor.

The other guards cautiously step back from him. That was their first mistake.

It didn’t take long before a new bone starts growing from the base of his elbow. The only things that covered up something that gruesome are the writhing mass of invisible black matter and the new muscle and skin that accompanied it. Oh, but the first option probably doesn’t apply, since humans can’t see that.

Soon, his arm finishes regenerating and he flexes his new fingers.

“Come on, is this all you’ve got?” He calls out to no one in particular. “I feel like I’m playing on easy mode right now!”

The security’s response to his challenge is so simple and straightforward. A small group, the last one of them for now, rushes towards him with the intent to try and pin him down to the wall.

It was a good plan; he’ll give them some credit for that. Still, that didn’t stop one of the men from dropping down dead after a bullet passes through his forehead.

Despite seeing their comrade fall before their eyes, it didn’t stop the two from closing in on him. The last two men are a mere few feet away from him, but before either of them can even touch him, he kicks one of the two remaining men in the shin, making that man choke out and gasp in pain, and then he bashes the other one in the skull with his own head. The other man drops on the floor without making a single noise.

Satou ignores the throbbing ache in his skull as he guns down the two, causing them to go still like everyone else. He moves forward shortly after that, not even sparing a glance towards the pile of bodies he left on the floor.

For all the time he anticipated their beefed up security, this ended up being a lot more disappointing than he expected. He’d thought that the government would’ve learned from their mistakes the third time, but he can see they didn’t. Such a shame, he thinks to himself.

These men put up a fight, not even he can deny that, but in the end, the threat they posed to him is on the same level as a bunch of pathetically low-leveled mobs. They’re nothing but a complete chore to go through, which sucked out any of the potential fun he might’ve had.

He passes through the first floor and second floor without much trouble; the other security guards stationed right there didn’t really count as trouble in his book. It didn’t take long for him to reach his destination.

Now at the specific room on the third floor, he kicks the door open, and soon, he’s harshly met with the room’s mixed scent of rubbing alcohol and blood. He can guess where the blood came from.

The old ajin steps inside without even bothering to close the door behind him.

Rather abruptly, he stops in his tracks. Satou furrows his brows before lowering the gun to his side. “This…isn’t what I expected.” He comments his thought out loud.

That’s honestly a big understatement. He hasn’t even gotten inside yet, and somehow, the surgeons were all out cold on the floor. He briefly entertained the idea that they must’ve heard of him breaking in and had heart attacks on the spot, but that’s probably not the case here.

Since there’s no visible blood on any of the surgeons, it’s safe to assume that none of them are dead. He comes closer and crouches down on the floor to inspect one of them, and sure enough, the surgeon is still breathing.

The surgeon stopped doing that as soon as Satou drops his knife down on the man’s forehead, however. He hums in disappointment before pulling his knife out and putting it back in his vest.

Satou gets up. He doesn’t bother to do the same he did with that surgeon to the other downed ones. There’s no fun in doing that anyway.

He looks over the empty dissecting table, putting one of his hands over it. The dissecting table appeared to have been used recently, judging by the fact that the metal straps appeared to have been pulled off. From what he can infer with the obviously empty table, someone else other than his party was here, and from the looks of it, they got to the fourth ajin before he did.

If he has to guess, whoever that third party was, they might’ve taken Chiaki away around five minutes ago, which is the same time he spent while grinding those disappointingly amped-up security guards.

Now that he thought about it, it’s a rather clever tactic of them, using him as the distraction to keep the security off of them while they retrieve Chiaki from the lab. That doesn’t mean he enjoyed being used that way.

“Hm. Maybe I should go and have a friendly chat with them.” He says that thought out loud. He walks away from the room as a mildly disappointed frown makes its way over his face.

He knows that now isn’t the best time, not with the current weather, but he supposes having a helping hand won’t hurt.

* * *

A moment ago…no, was it hours, maybe? Days, even? She isn’t so sure anymore. Whatever the case is, all she knew is that they were cutting her open again. It didn’t hurt any less than the first time they did it to her. And then, the next thing she knew, everything went blank once more. The pain is gone for now.

She wonders if she’ll ever get used to the scent of alcohol and blood— _her own blood_ —the longer this goes on. Then again, since she couldn’t stop herself from retching at the thought of it, probably not.

Chiaki lies still on the table, anxious and anticipating what they’d do to her this time. She waits for the moment they’d cut her limbs off again, slowly crush her body until she stopped squirming and screaming, or maybe even take out her organs one by one again at this time.

Instead of any of those, however, she hears some screaming and grunting. It’s confusing, and it became even more confusing for her when she feels the metal straps that are holding her body in place are snapped off shortly after.

She doesn’t get up. It all felt so unbelievable and surreal; she wonders if all those drugs they injected into her had something to do with this.

The bandages covering her head is undone, and soon she’s met with the harsh light coming from the ceiling. Out of reflex, one of her hands come up to shield her face while her eyes shut tight. She finds herself instinctively sitting up, blinking now and then while her eyes try to get used to seeing proper light again.

A moment passes and soon, the light around her wasn’t as overwhelming as it was not too long ago. She blinks once or twice, her eyes now fully re-adjusting to her surroundings. White ceiling, white floor, and bright white lights; the room she’s been in throughout this time was definitely a lab of some sort, but that’s not what she’s focusing on right now.

Instead, she’s currently focusing on the person right in front of her. Their attire is just a black raincoat, a black pair of gloves, and a cheap, unpainted paper mask over their face. Their hair is also tied into a bun, which she notices just now.

Chiaki squints. Even though she couldn’t see their face, there’s something about this person that feels familiar somehow. A part of her wonders if she has seen them somewhere before.

At the same time, however…

_‘I’m…I’m dreaming right now, aren’t I?’_

The person speaks up, replying like they read her mind. “Nanami. You’re awake, aren’t you?”

_‘That voice…’_

Her heart skips a beat. She hasn’t heard it in a while, but she recognizes that voice. “I…Izu….” She tries to say his name, but her throat is raspy. She hasn’t properly spoken in a long while; it felt weird hearing her own voice again.

That person, Izuru, she now knows, gently presses a finger over her lips. "No names right now." He tells her in a nonchalant tone she knew too well.

Chiaki furrows her brows, lucidity coming back to her mind at this moment. She manages to articulate her words clearly despite her rasp. “You…you shouldn’t be here. Please…get out of here…I don’t want you to get hurt too…” She chokes at the end of that before gasping.

Izuru’s voice remains firm. “That won’t happen. We will leave the facility as soon as possible before the security notices you’re gone.”

 _‘Are you sure?’_ She wanted to ask him that, but her throat closes up on her at that moment; she doesn’t know whether that was involuntary or not.

Either way, that allowed the boy in front of her to continues unprompted.

“But before we do so, I may have to tranquilize you first.”

_‘Tranquilize…?’_

Upon laying eyes on that certain object she instinctively shifts back, looking away and shutting her eyes right. One of her hands at her side clenches against the cold table. Her chest heaves as her breathing turns uneven. A soft whine comes out of her lips.

He seems to have anticipated her reaction and moves the syringe out of her sight. He calmly explains to her, "I know it sounds unpleasant. However, this is necessary if we were to get out of this facility with little detection.”

She doesn’t say anything to that.

He notices that, and so, he attempts to mitigate it somewhat by adding, "You don't have to remain conscious throughout it. I can imagine retaining awareness while being transported in an enclosed space would be uncomfortable for you."

She tries to calm herself down, at least enough to understand him better. Once she’s somewhat calm, his words made her think over it, imagining the scenario Izuru told her. _‘I guess he does have a point.’_ Having made her decision, she breathes out before simply nodding at that. “Okay.” She slowly nods again.

As soon as she said that and therefore, gave her consent, Izuru comes closer. He pauses when he sees her flinch for a moment. He lowers the syringe, keeping it out of her sight once more for now.

She catches his unusually worried look towards her, and she shakes her head, looking away from him. “It’s okay,” She says, sounding like she’s trying to convince herself as much as she’s trying to convince him. “I’m okay. I’m okay.” She repeats.

Despite looking completely unconvinced by that, he doesn’t waste any more time. He pats the side of her neck down with two fingers a few times, before going ahead and injecting the tranquilizer onto that same spot with his other hand.

Chiaki grunts, feeling the familiar, sharp prick on her neck. She softly exhales; the feeling of losing consciousness is so uncomfortably ingrained into her at this point. Her eyes flutter for a moment or so before they close at last.

Her body limply drops forward at that point. The only reason why she didn’t fall to the floor is because her face ended up landing right on his shoulder, which blocked her body from simply falling over.

Izuru grabs her by the shoulder and moves her slightly away from him. He glances over at her face. He can tell she’s completely asleep at this point, and yet, he can see that she didn’t look peaceful at all.

Deciding not to linger on that any longer than he has to, he returns to his task at hand. With as much speed and finesse he can put into, he gently folds her body into a fetal position right, tucking her arms and legs close to her body, before quickly putting her inside the duffel bag.

Izuru watches Chiaki shift inside the bag due to the tight space enclosed around her. She softly groans for a moment.

He pulls the zipper up, sealing her away from the world.

* * *

Everything has gone according to his plan for now. No one has seen him sneaking through the back door of the facility, nor has any of the remaining security been notified of his presence. That is, assuming that they weren’t all slaughtered by that old man.

Speaking of him, Izuru supposes that the old man made for a good distraction.

As he’s exiting from the third floor’s lab room, he’s carrying the duffel bag over his shoulder. The weight isn’t as bothersome as he thought it’d be if he’s being honest.

Izuru closes one eye to check over a few things. Despite the unfavorable weather, he knows that his black ghost should still be out there, and as expected, it’s still right there. It’s surveying the inside of this facility from the other side, somewhere on the second floor’s hallways.

He has a reason for summoning his black ghost at this time; it is not only to aid in possible directions, but also to serve as a distraction and to prevent him from encountering the other intruder. He’d rather not go into conflict with that old man, or whoever else might be with him.

He knows if that were to happen, such an encounter would be a big hindrance to his plan of escaping unnoticed. It doesn’t help he has to take the old man’s combat experience into account as well, judging by what little he’s seen. If a fight were to break out between them, he knew that the only choice he’d have was to run as quickly as he can.

Deciding not to think about those possibilities any further, he quickly but carefully descends from the third floor’s set of stairs. No one else is around, so he knows it should be safe for him to take this route, at least for now.

Once he came across the second floor’s stairs, however, he hears someone running down in his direction. It didn’t help when he heard those steps abruptly stop and shortly after that, hears their heavy breathing as well.

Izuru takes the tranquilizing gun out at the same time he turns around, pointing the weapon at the unwanted person.

With that uniform, cap, and face mask, that unwanted person is unmistakably one of the surgeons. The surgeon immediately raises his arms up.

“It appears I’ve missed one.” Izuru dully points out.

The surgeon audibly gulps. His eyes dart around, going from the duffel bag slung over his shoulder and to the tranquilizer gun in hand. Sweat drips down from the side of his head. “W…Who are you?”

He chooses not to answer that, and instead, replies with, "I've already disabled the rest of your team. It won't make much of a difference if I decide to do the same for you."

The surgeon sighs, appearing to be resigned to his fate. He raises his head, making direct eye contact with him as he says, "B…Before you do that, I want to say something,” He pauses for a split moment, before backtracking that with, “T-That is, if you’d let me to. I…understand if you don’t.”

He knows he should just pull the trigger and get it over quickly, time is of the essence after all, but at the same time, there’s something about that surgeon that made him consider it, even if only a little bit. He stays quiet while he thinks about it.

Since there is no exact reply coming from that indicated a negative one, the surgeon cautiously takes it as a sign to continue. “It may not mean much and," The surgeon lets out a sigh as he admits, "I know that it's a bit hypocritical to say this, because it’s coming from me of all people, but you'll keep her safe, won't you?”

Behind his mask, Izuru raises one of his eyebrows. He expected the surgeon to begin bargaining for his life, and had he done that, he would’ve made his choice to incapacitate him right then. To think he didn’t do that and instead, asked for the ajin’s wellbeing, the same one they experimented on if he might add, has given him a bit of intrigue.

Despite that curiosity, he doesn’t lower the tranquilizer gun even a bit. "That's the intended goal." He coolly replies.

The surgeon takes a deep breath. "In that case, you might want to turn southeast at the exit. No one should be able to see you slip out. If you went out the same way you came here, you'd be getting unwanted attention from the press. They've most likely surrounded most of the area since the containment breach happened."

"Why are you aiding us?” He questions. “Is this perhaps a pitiful attempt to bargain for your life?"

"I want to say it isn't, but then that'd make me a bigger liar than I already am. It doesn't matter either way," The surgeon admits while shaking his head, hands still raised up. "The least I can do is to make sure you get the hell out of here, and if—that's a very big if—I live after this is over, you also make sure I never see Nanami come back to this lab. What we’ve done to her while we’ve had her here is inexcusable. No kid should’ve gone through all of that." He swallows a lump in his throat at the end of that.

He breathes out. "Very well, then. Put your hands down." He lowers the tranquilizer gun at last.

"You're..." The surgeon swallows, arms still half-raised above his head in reluctance. "You're really going to let me go?"

He huffs. He thought that the words he said are something so simple, and yet, this human surgeon can’t seem to comprehend it. He decides he might as well spell it out clearly for him.

"There's no point in incapacitating you now. You should run as well. It'd be a waste if someone like you were to die far too early," At the end of that, he flicks his wrist before turning away from him. "Get out before you make me regret my decision."

Thankfully, the surgeon doesn’t question any of that any further. He glances at him one last time, before turning around and rushing downstairs as quickly as he can. His steps cluttered around a few more times until Izuru couldn’t hear him nearby anymore.

Clearly, the surgeon made a smart decision at the end.

With that settled, Izuru continues on his way downstairs. He thinks back about the information the surgeon gave to him and decides to give it some consideration. Although his plan is happening the way he envisioned it, for now, he supposes it wouldn’t hurt to have a backup plan in case if unforeseeable factors were to come at this moment.

Izuru checks the status of his black ghost again. If he’s estimating correctly, his black ghost should still have ten to fifteen minutes more before disappearing and requiring him to summon it again. That should be enough time for it to survey the area the surgeon mentioned.

Once he checked in his black ghost’s field of vision, his breath hitches in his throat. His protective grip over the duffel bag’s sling becomes even tighter. He never thought that this would happen right here and now of all times.

Right on the second floor’s hallways, the worst came face-to-face with his black ghost then and there. An old man is right in front of the field of vision he’s currently sharing.

Said old man had two features that made him stand out: his eyes that remain perpetually shut and the hunting cap he’s wearing. He tips his hat with a smile. Even though his eyes are closed, it appears as if he’s looking through him, directly addressing him with, “It’s great to meet you at last. I assume you’re Nanami’s friend, aren’t you?” At the same time he said that, a large, black mass begins to take shape and coalescence into one, recognizable form from his back.

Izuru’s pulse is rushing faster than it ever did in his life. He never encountered another black ghost before, much less one that came from a hostile ajin. He had considered this factor, and even then, he knows he couldn’t do much.

The other black ghost didn’t open its mouth, or even indicated it had one in the first place, and yet, the distorted voice of an old man came out of it.

 ** _“Oh my.”_** The other black ghost curls its hands into fists and readies itself into a southpaw stance. **_“How interesting.”_**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Before anyone asks, yes, the surgeon Izuru talks with at the near end is the same one who sympathizes with Kei in the original anime and manga. Even though he didn't appear that long (and he didn't even have a name or proper appearance), I'll admit I grew a soft spot for him.
> 
> I know I'm not really good at writing action scenes, as you can obviously see here, so feel free to tell me off for that.


	16. Reveal

_‘I’ve never fought another IBM before.’_ Satou’s relaxed but confident smile stayed on his face. This is certainly one more thing he didn’t expect at this raid. He surveys the other IBM right in front of him, mentally taking note of its appearance.

Even from this distance, he can see it’s unusually tall compared to an average one like Tanaka’s. He could even say it’s at least a foot taller than his IBM. In terms of appearance, it has abnormally long limbs, with its arms being of the same length as its legs, making it look rather disproportional. At the end of its hands, it has long claws that curved into hooks of some sort.

At the moment, the tall IBM stays right where it is, for now, at least.

Satou and his IBM stay still in position as well, patiently anticipating what the other IBM might do if he allowed it to strike first.

His thin smile widens as a low chuckle erupts from his throat.

_‘I wonder, what will be your next move?’_

* * *

Every last muscle in Izuru’s body has remained stiff since several moments ago. Right now, he made himself steady his breathing somehow while he quickly racks his mind up for any possible strategies. He knows that panicking will only lead to creating rash decisions, which would lead to even more undesirable outcomes.

While he’s still sharing the same view as his black ghost, he keeps observing them, watching out for a sign or an opening. So far, neither the old man nor the other black ghost has made any hints of striking first as of yet.

It’s safe to say that both parties are staying still on either side of the hallway, waiting for the other to strike first.

Izuru holds the duffel bag closer to him.

A single order is transmitted between him and his black ghost.

_‘Don’t let them reach us.’_

Immediately after that, he drops the point of view he shared and severs the connection with his black ghost. There’s no more need to check on its status and whereabouts. The last thing he saw before severing their connection is his black ghost crouching low, right before it lunged and flung itself forward at the immediate threats.

* * *

A split moment passes.

Satou reaches for his knife, but before he or his IBM could react any further than that, the other, taller IBM lunges forward at them; in contrast with its physique, it’s a lot faster than he expected it to be. It took only less than that split moment for the other IBM to reach an inch away towards him.

Right at that exact moment, however, his IBM steps in front of him and slashes against the other IBM, keeping it from truly reaching him. His IBM doesn’t hit it. The other one steps itself back before a single claw could hit its body.

In response to that, the other IBM manages to slash at his IBM’s shoulder, until it gets kneed in the abdomen and forces it back.

A second passes and Satou notices the ‘wound’ his IBM has sustained regenerates immediately.

Satou’s IBM curls its right hand into a fist and runs forward, aiming the concentrated force against the tall IBM. The tall IBM catches the punch in its left hand, but not long after that, its hand completely dissolves.

He glances over to check their status, and sure enough, he witnesses the same thing happened to his IBM.

This time, however, neither of the two IBMs has regenerated from their ‘wounds’. Only a stump remained on each other’s wrists, right where their right and left hands used to be.

His forehead crinkles, noting to himself, _‘Oh, I see. It looks like blunt force from another IBM is the only thing that can truly damage it.’_

As if it was reading his thoughts, his IBM charges forward with a raised fist that’s aimed towards the other one. The other IBM nimbly dodges the attack, crouching low before landing a kick on his IBM’s collarbone.

His IBM stumbles back for a moment. The tall IBM uses that as an opening, grabbing ahold of its opponent with its remaining hand by the shoulder. Its grip isn’t as strong as it would’ve been with both hands, evident by the fact that it only took a few seconds of struggling before his snake-like IBM broke free from the other one’s hold.

Satou’s IBM opens its mouth, revealing a maw full of sharp teeth and salivating insides. It brings its head down to bite on the tall one’s shoulder.

His IBM begins to furiously shake its head, keeping its jaws secured while the tall IBM struggles to push it away, not unlike a dog with its chew toy, or a crocodile with its prey.

The tall IBM grabs the back of his IBM’s head, before using its own body as support and bashes it against the wall. His IBM’s mouth opens in reflex, and soon the tall IBM forcefully throws it aside.

The tall IBM proceeds to ignore its opponent from moments ago, rushing towards Satou with speed that shouldn’t be possible for its size.

It stops right in front of him, mere inches away, its remaining arm is raised above its head and its hook-like claws have spread out.

Satou’s brows furrow upon seeing that. “Oh?”

And just like that, the tall IBM brings its arm down and slashes across his chest. A stinging sensation tingles all over that area as his once white shirt gets coated in red. Despite the heavy pain that made him stumble back in reflex, he doesn’t wince at all from it.

The tall IBM raises its arm as if it’d try and slash him down once again. But, before it can do so, it gets tackled down to the ground by his IBM. Satou’s IBM keeps it pinned in place by putting a foot on its back.

Despite what it’d done to him a minute ago, Satou comes closer to observe it further. Curiously enough, the tall IBM isn’t struggling as much as it should’ve been. He thinks it’s strange at first, until he sneaks a peek at its lower half.

Starting from its feet, the bandages its body is made of is slowly coming undone before crumbling down in the air. Several seconds pass, and the same process is rapidly catching up to its midsection. It’s clear that the tall IBM’s time is running out, and it won’t be long before it completely fades away.

Before the last bits of its head completely dissolve into the air, the tall IBM echoes a few words that piqued the old ajin’s curiosity. **_“What a…pitiful attempt...”_**

And just like that, any remaining tiny particles of black matter vanished without a single trace left.

Satou runs a hand across his bleeding chest; it really did quite the number on his shirt. His lips press against each other while raising an eyebrow in thought. _‘Ah well, I was going to change later anyway.’_

At least he experienced something new today.

* * *

“Mr Satou,” Hajime’s eyes trail on the old man’s sudden change of clothes, a posh suit and tie, to be exact. His eyes then narrow when he sees it’s only the old man who returned to them. “Where is she?”

He shakes his head. “I wasn’t able to find her.”

Hajime didn’t know exactly what kind of emotion came over him after hearing that. “What do you mean you ‘didn’t find her’?” He barely, just barely, restrained himself from outright yelling at the old ajin.

Tanaka almost gets up from the wheelchair to try and calm the human boy down, only to immediately step down when he sees his comrade raise a hand in front of him.

The old ajin doesn’t flinch at that outburst, retaining his calm as he explains, “Hinata, when I got there, someone else already got her out. I have a hunch they’re another ajin.”

The complicated emotions he’s been feeling up to that point slowly simmers down to that of confusion. “A…Another ajin? Who are they? What did they want with my friend?”

“I don’t know either,” Satou shakes his head once more. “I never got to see them in person. I only saw their IBM after I tried to retrieve Nanami from the lab.”

Hajime goes quiet after that, eyes gluing in on the floor. His lips shut tight, chest straining to breathe in and out. He breaks out of his momentary stupor when he hears him call out,

“For now, we’ve got no time to waste. Come on.”

When the other two start moving away from him, Hajime doesn’t follow them immediately. He stays still for a few more moments, turning back to glance at the building’s entrance. He sighs and soon, joins in back with the group.

Satou fixes up his tie while he and his party make their way towards the building’s exit. Even from this side, he can already hear the commotion that’s going on with the press people outside.

It’s been uneasily quiet since he got back, for an obvious reason. To break the tense silence between them, the old man cheerfully blurts out of nowhere, “You know, I feel like Hannibal right now.”

That did the trick.

“Seriously, Hannibal?” The boy right behind them snarks.

Tanaka thoughtfully puts his cents into that weird conversation starter. “If you’re Hannibal…” He trails off for a moment before continuing that with, “Then does that make me Clarice?”

The old man hums like he’s considering it for a moment until he replies with, “Nope,” He fondly shakes his head, disagreeing with a smile. “You’d be Murdock.”

“Murdock?”

Hajime blinks. “Huh, what?”

The old man hums once more in thought. “As for Hinata, he’d definitely be Frankie.”

“I don’t think I know what you’re talking about, Mr. Satou.” The boy deadpans.

Their talk comes to a quick stop not long after that. The only sounds that can be heard are their clacking footsteps and the rolling from the wheelchair. It didn’t take long before all sorts of voices are heard within their vicinity.

“Oh, we’re here,” Satou exclaims. Right on cue, Tanaka closes his eyes and falls slack in his wheelchair, giving off the illusion he’s truly unconscious.

The small group of three walks right into the view of those dozens of clusters of news reporters. Although Satou is technically back since he’s pushing Tanaka’s wheelchair, he’s very much the main face. Hajime’s presence isn’t as visible as the other two, what with his unremarkably ordinary appearance; it’s also because he’s staying right behind those two.

As expected, the press people come forward and start to bombard them with all sorts of questions. There’s so many of them talking at once, the group can only make out a couple of them while the rest turned into a screeching, barely understandable white noise.

“Are you one of the employees here?”

"Is that Tanaka Kouji, the second reported ajin in our country?"

“Who is that boy? And why is he here with you two?”

“Is he involved with this too?”

Satou raises a hand to try and quiet those nosy reporters down a bit. “Wait, everyone, please.” He politely requests them.

It ended up working somewhat; they’re still asking too many questions, but at least the volume is manageable enough for him to talk without being brushed off by the noises.

Now that he has the chance, he begins with, “Everyone, please let me explain in a moment. I’ll start this off by saying this,” He pauses for a bigger effect, having seen that he got everyone’s attention. "My name is Satou, and I am an ajin."

With a public declaration like that, it’s not a surprise to see what he said shook those reporters off their rocks. There’s no delay or pause, as immediately after that, question after question came back to him.

“An ajin?!”

“Mr. Satou, are you truly okay with revealing that on live television?”

“How long have you known you were an ajin?”

Satou retains his pleasant demeanor, but at the same time, he’s also ignoring those trivial questions. He waits for the perfect opportunity to speak once again, and as soon as a particular question came in, he does so.

“The ajins are supposed to live under government care, right?”

At that exact moment, three words released from his lips cut through that question. “That’s a lie.”

Shocked gasps come from everyone else in the area. “What? How so?” One of them pressingly asks while putting a microphone close to his face. “I know there are rumors, but those can’t be true, can it?”

He shakes his head. “It sounds hard to believe, but I’m sad to tell you all this: the rumors are true, the government performs all sorts of cruel, inhumane experiments on any ajin they get their hands on!”

More gasps come from the press people. Some of them even start to cover their mouths with their hands while their eyes widen at that piece of information.

Before any of them can say anymore, Satou interjects by saying, “I’ve already uploaded the proof on the Internet. You should be able to find it.”

“It is true!” Another one explains, holding his phone up to the crowd to show them the video in question. The other reporters begin to either crowd that person or bring their phones out to search for the video. Soon, they all begin to have the same reaction as that person.

One of them mutters, “Oh my God, this is so insane. I can’t believe something so inhumane is done to them.”

Satou observes them, furrowing his brows. Their reaction is good as expected, but now he has to get things back on track. He gets their attention back, gesturing an arm towards the boy behind him. “I believe Hinata would like to share his story too. He’s Nanami’s closest friend, and you can all see, hearing about her capture has affected him quite a lot.”

Hajime swallows upon hearing that. He already knew about this part of the plan, and yet, his heartbeat hasn’t slowed down since the beginning of it.

That got their attention back. “Nanami? You mean Nanami Chiaki, the fourth national ajin?”

Soon, everyone in the press turns their attention to the human boy, practically swarming him with all sorts of questions. Several of them press their microphones close to his face.

"Were you the accomplice who helped the fourth ajin in evading police arrest back on the seventh of July?"

"Did you have any personal reasons for doing something like that?"

There are more questions than the group has expected. Hajime takes a deep breath, before staring at the people in front of him head-on. “It sounds unbelievable to you, but the truth is, this isn’t the first time someone I knew turned out to be an ajin.”

He hears them murmur among each other, definitely in shock, but he doesn’t pay any mind to that.

While putting a hand over his chest, he reveals them in a volume that’s louder than he’s used to, "My brother was the third national ajin! I lost him five years ago when my parents turned him in, selling him out for a million yen reward that doesn’t exist!"

“Your brother’s the third ajin?!”

“The million yen reward doesn’t actually exist?!”

He ignores those questions for now and continues, “That’s why, when I found out Chiaki was an ajin too that day, I decided I’m not going to just stand there and do nothing, consequences be damned. I don’t care if it was against the law, I couldn’t let the government take away someone important to me, and I couldn’t let them do it again!”

The press people have gone all but quiet after hearing that. A couple of them even extend looks of sympathy towards the boy they’re interviewing on short notice.

Hajime chuckles bitterly, fists clenched at his sides. “Look how well that turned out. In the end, I still failed to protect the people who are important to me. They took my brother away, and now, they took my best friend too.” He turns his face away, not wanting them to see the tears that threatened to spill out of his eyes.

After that, Satou shields the boy from their view, preventing them from asking any more personal questions. Despite his dislike towards him, Hajime would be lying if he said he didn’t at least appreciate that gesture.

The old man takes over from there. “Tanaka wasn’t even out of high school yet when they captured him, suffering for ten years, and now we’re letting the same thing happen again with Nanami,” He shakes his fist, turning to directly face everyone in the crowd. ”In two days from now, we will have a protest! We will do it, right in front of the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare. Please, join the fight with me!”

Tanaka discreetly opens a single eyelid to observe what was happening right then. He has already heard of what’s going on since the beginning, but getting to see things play out this way is a different experience altogether.

“Do this for the time when any of you will turn out to be an ajin. Do this to give justice to the national ajins who were victims of the unjust government that seeks to exploit them.” Tears begin to stream down his face. He chokes a sob out, finishing his speech with, “Please, do it all for the sake of everyone’s happiness!”

The crowd has gone speechless after hearing all of that; or rather, mostly speechless, as it didn’t take long for them to start discussing among each other again.

The edges of Satou’s lips twitch upward.

A few seconds later, everyone hears something go _BOOM!_ from a distant part of the building. They flinch, stepping themselves back in panic.

The initial panic settles down, and when the press people turn, the trio was already gone.

“Wait, where did they go?!”

* * *

It didn’t take much time for Izuru to reach the ground floor, and soon, he’s running off into the directions the surgeon gave him not too long ago.

True to what the surgeon has told him, most of the press has surrounded his original escape route, which would’ve caused him a lot of unnecessary trouble had he decided to go through with it. The alternative route, while not perfect either, gave him a bigger opening to slip past without attracting too much attention.

He supposes the reason why none of the press people noticed him is because they were occupied with something else. Though he has no basis for it, if his assumptions are correct, then the old man might’ve had something to do with it.

He comes across a specific area; one that he’s sure is well hidden within the forest. He’s aware that the method he got the vehicle is less than savory and Chiaki wouldn’t have approved of it if she ever found out, but it was the only way. He opens the taxi cab’s doors, wasting no time getting his passenger in the backseat.

Izuru settles the duffel bag down on the backseat. He zips it up, opening it slightly to let Chiaki breathe, but other than that, he kept her inside. If he’s estimating correctly from the dosage he gave her, she should remain unconscious for several more hours.

It should be more than enough time for him to find a suitable place for them to stay in the meantime.

He wastes no time and gets himself inside as well, He takes the mask off his face and sets it aside for now. He puts the key in, and he attempts to start the engine. It took him several seconds before the engine fully revs up, and soon, he begins driving the vehicle right there.

As he gets farther and farther away from the facility and its surrounding area, until it’s nothing more than a tiny dot in his eyes, he thinks back on his black ghost. There’s no doubt in his mind that it already faded away long before he left. Whether it was defeated or not in the end didn’t matter much to him, so long as it kept the old man from following him.

* * *

Satou steadily holds onto the steering wheel. His group has escaped from the facility with stealth that would’ve made Solid Snake envious, and even better, not a single one of the press people or one of the government officials has noticed their ride slipping away from there.

He briefly entertains the idea of them chasing them down, but immediately shakes his head off. A chase scene would’ve been fun, but now isn’t the right time for that. Maybe he can try doing that next time, once it’s less of a hassle and he’s planned it through.

Compared to him, his two companions aren’t taking things as well as he is.

Tanaka is sitting right by his side as usual, though he’s rather quiet at the moment; he’s off staring to the window by his side with an unreadable expression. Hajime is seated at the back, and just like the second ajin, he hasn’t said anything since they’ve left that place.

It’s not hard to see why. In some way, they kind of failed their objective; Satou didn’t even get to see the results that came from ten days of torture up close, no thanks to that other ajin who took Chiaki away before he can do so.

Oh well, live and learn, he supposes.

Then again, the whole raid isn’t a complete failure, so that’s one comforting thing for their group. The humans are now somewhat aware of what’s going on behind the curtains, and now he can officially begin the first phase of his plan.

In addition to that…

He thinks back on the footage he took before meeting with Tanaka and Hajime again; the ones that detailed the various tests they’ve performed on Chiaki during the past ten days.

A thin smile makes its way on his face.

At least they didn’t come out of this completely empty-handed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Writing action scenes are tough, writing fight scenes even more so. *insert pained laughter here*
> 
> On a lighter note, whoo, the first arc is done at last! That was a fun ride, here's to hoping the other arcs would be just as fun for me to explore, especially the aftermath of some certain things that happened.


	17. Barely Breathing

Chiaki isn’t a stranger to drowsiness; she should know, having experienced what it’s like to pull an all-nighter too many times to count. But, there’s something different about this kind of drowsiness this time around. Her eyelids feel a lot heavier than they usually do. It’s almost like there’s some invisible weight that’s forcing them down, no matter how much she tried to force them open.

She doesn’t know how much time has passed since, but suddenly, the invisible weight is gone, and it didn’t take long for her to get back in the real world. As she gets herself up, she groans. Every muscle in her body ached.

Trying to ignore that for now, her eyes dart around, now fully taking her surroundings in now that her mind is fully cleared. It’s yet another unfamiliar place. Judging by the gray, unpainted walls and ceiling, she’d guess that this might’ve been a warehouse, or if not that, then it’s some abandoned construction site. Maybe. It’s a bit hard to tell at a place that doesn’t have much lighting, to begin with.

She glances over to her hands, only now noticing that there are long strips of bandages that are covering them up, including her fingers, and those wrapped the entirety of her arms. Her hand reaches over to feel her chest, and by then, she quickly realizes that those same bandages are the only thing that’s preserving her modesty at the moment.

“You’re awake.”

Hearing that made her jump back in place; she looks around the area once more, to try and look for whoever said that. It might’ve been just her, but there’s something about that voice that felt familiar.

It turns out she didn’t have to look that hard. The lighting in her surroundings turns up somewhat brighter, and right when that happened, the person who spoke not too long ago has comfortably seated himself on his knees right in front of her.

Chiaki blinks a few times, rubbing her eyes. Long black hair, red eyes, dressed in a suit and tie; it’s been a month since she last saw him, and he looks exactly as she remembered him.

“Izuru?” Before either of the two knew it, she found herself leaning forward, and without warning, her hands reach forward to tenderly cup the boy’s face in them.

Izuru’s facial expression didn’t change, not even with something as subtle as a raised brow. Even so, it’s clear that due to the surprise physical contact, his body has stiffened.

Chiaki didn’t notice that, though, being too caught up in checking him. Her thumbs press and rub all over his cheeks. “I’m really not dreaming right now, right?” She didn’t notice how heavy her voice was as she also asked him, “You’re real, right?” There’s a small part of her that knows her questions don’t make any sense and yet, she pressed on anyway.

Instead of replying to that question, he takes ahold of her hands. His fingers shake ever so slightly and soon, he grabs her wrists, before proceeding to gently pry her hands off his face. After that, he puts her hands down, settling them back onto her lap.

“Nanami, why are you crying?”

Right at that exact moment, she feels something wet is dripping down the sides of her cheeks; she forcefully swallows the small lump in her throat as quickly as she can, not wanting him to notice that at all. “Oh, um,” One of her still-bandaged hands reach up to her face, clumsily wiping at the corners of her eyes using the back of that hand. “I’m sorry.”

He lets go of her wrists. He simply tells her in his usual monotone, “There’s nothing for you to apologize over.”

He stands up, and before she can ask him where he’s heading to, he comes back on short notice. He doesn’t give her any chance to say something right as he hands her over a duffel bag.

Although she’s a bit confused by that, nevertheless she takes it in her hands. She glances at him, and then back at the duffel bag. As her current situation dawned upon her, she puts two and two together. She tentatively zips it open, and as expected, there’s a bunch of new clothes inside.

She hears the soft thud of footsteps, letting her know that Izuru is going to leave her for a while until she’s done changing. It’s perfectly reasonable, and yet, there’s something about that which didn’t sit right with her. It’s so irrational of her to think this way.

Chiaki blurts out while timidly peeking at him from an angle, "Izuru, wait."

Izuru pauses, having heard her call out to him. He turns towards her direction, expression remaining neutral.

She goes completely still, trying to think of how to form those words. Even though it’s only been a moment, somehow she thought she was taking too long to say it, so she went with, "You can stay here," Immediately after saying that, her face flushes upon realizing how that can be taken the wrong way. She hurriedly adds, “If that’s okay with you, I mean.”

He doesn’t say anything, but then, it didn’t look like he’s going to move out of her sight any time soon. As she requested, the boy remains rooted in place; however, he also turned himself around, averting his eyes away from where she’s changing to respect her privacy.

Chiaki takes a deep breath. She goes over her arm once more and starts to slowly peel the bandages off around it, little by little. The bandages weren’t that hard to take off; since those probably had to be changed very frequently, she guesses it’s not really that surprising.

Out of curiosity, she peers over her now-exposed arm. There’s not a single mark on her skin, not a single proof that she has gone through all sorts of awful experiments not too long ago. Her index finger reaches out to tentatively poke over it. It still feels exactly the same, but, she can’t shake off the fact it’s been replaced so many times now.

After putting them on, her fingers go over to check on the new hoodie. The hood is a lot longer than what she’s used to. It’s like something an assassin from the Brotherhood would wear, and in that case, it would definitely help in covering her face better, if she ever went out in public again. She probably won’t do that right now, though.

Also, these new clothes are pretty baggy, which made them actually pretty comfy to wear, in her opinion. Not to mention, if she’s being completely honest right there, these clothes helped a bit. It’s easier to feel human again, somewhat.

Izuru seated himself back on the floor once she was done, though he didn’t say anything to her in the next moments that passed by between them, which is something that Chiaki’s thankful for. The silence is exactly what she needed, as it gave her some time to think over certain things. Everything that’s happened up until this point has truly sunken within her mind at last.

_'It was real.'_

Over a month ago, she was run over by a bus. She died. She was supposed to stay dead, but instead, she came back to life shortly after that. Because of that, she can’t be considered as a regular human anymore; she’s an ajin, something inhuman that should be contained as soon as possible. She managed to escape with Hajime at first, but it didn’t take long before the government caught up to her.

And then, when they finally got her, she was…she didn’t want to think about that any longer than she has to, but…she was tortured. She barely stopped herself from gagging upon thinking that specific part over. She shakes her head, trying to clear it away from those thoughts.

While trying to think of something that’ll distract her in the meantime, she decides to break the quiet and asks Izuru, "It's still night time, right?"

"Post-midnight." He corrects. "We've traveled for more than eight hours."

"Did anyone see you? Was there anyone who followed us?"

Izuru doesn’t reply immediately. To her, it would look like he’s been given some prompts, and now he’s trying to choose the best option between them. It took only a short second before he tells her, "As far as I know, no one did. For your other question, the chances of that are slim. Even if they've made attempts, it'll be immensely difficult for the government to track us down at our current location."

She thinks about that. While it’s good to hear that no one has followed them, she can’t shake off the feeling that it couldn’t have been that easy. Nevertheless, she nods. “Okay, I think I can see that.”

"I should also mention this to you,” He starts, abruptly changing the topic. “You’ve been under government custody for ten days.”

"Ten days?” She repeats in disbelief. “Was I...Was that how long it was?" Her voice is rather strained as she asked him that.

“Indeed,” He confirms before adding, ”The news of your official capture had been broadcasted all over the country at the end of July. It turned August Eleventh an hour ago."

“I guess that makes sense.” Chiaki dully remarks. Inwardly, however, she grimaces while thinking to herself, _'Only ten days? I swore it felt so much longer than that.'_ She had no idea whether to sob or laugh at that.

“Can you remember anything that happened throughout that period?”

“Remember…?”

“While you were in the lab, that’s what I meant.” Izuru clarifies.

“Oh…” She clutches her forehead, trying to think back on what she remembered. She did remember waking up on some cold surface, unable to see anything or move that much. She also remembered back when one of the surgeons plucked her eyes out, but everything after that had become a blur. No matter how much she tried to recall something else other than those, it just gets blocked out.

He must’ve noticed her tensed reaction. “Nanami?”

“I…” She shakes her head with a sigh. “I don’t remember that much. I’m sorry.”

“I suppose your mind must have blocked out those unwanted memories, then.” He surmises without missing a beat.

_‘Blocked out, huh? So it’s kind of like having amnesia, or something like that. I guess it might be for the best, then.’_

“Now that we have those out of the way,” Izuru begins, as he gets him up from the floor. “I suppose it’s time for me to come clean about a certain topic.”

“Huh?” She turns to him with a confused look. “What do you mean by that?”

Izuru doesn’t give her an answer. Or rather, he didn’t give her a verbal one. Instead, a large mass of black particles begins to form around Izuru’s back.

Chiaki should’ve been used to seeing that by now, but, seeing that happen to someone she knew before this mess happened felt different. She jumped back a bit, eyes widening as the implications quickly hit her.

It didn’t take long for those black particles to solidify into a more recognizable form, and once it did, she couldn’t contain the hitch in her throat. It’s been a while since she saw it, but she recognizes that IBM. She knows to herself that it’s the same one she saw on two occasions; one time perched at a utility pole a year ago, and at another time, back at the traffic incident.

Izuru’s IBM is humanoid in its overall shape, and yet, it towered over both of them. She’s sure that it’d dwarf even Tanaka and Mr. Satou’s IBMs. She recognizes its unnaturally long limbs, as well as the curved, hook-like claws it had in place of, what should’ve been, normal fingers.

Chiaki tries to compose herself as best as she can, even while she struggles to take all of this new information in, “Izuru…you…” She swallows. ”You’re an ajin too?”

A short, wordless nod is all she receives as an answer from him.

There are so many questions racing through her mind right now, but in the end, she’s only able to ask him one. “How long have you known?”

His voice has a subtle melancholic tone to it when he answered her, “For as long as I can remember.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: It's been a while since I got back to this (and I quickly apologize for that haha). Still, here we go with the second arc!
> 
> Speaking of which, since I'm not really confident with my artistic skills (assuming that I had any in the first place), I decided to do these silhouettes, in order to give you all a better idea of what Chiaki and Izuru's IBMs look like along with their heights. Maybe I'll do I proper sketch someday, but that's not a promise haha.


End file.
